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We were discussing in another thread about why prayers never get answered...another tidbit that always stuck in my craw. It always seemed to me that it was a colossal waste of time but I did it anyway. And I did a lot of it.
Someone I know who is religious is struggling with unanswered prayers.....I mean, it makes sense to question everything and there are verses in the bible that promise, promise that all you have to do is ask, and you'll get it. How much do you think that falls short? That is just one inconsistency and contradiction in the bible and there are many other religious texts that are as equally confusing.
When is promising to answer prayers just by asking but never delivering a good idea? Sounds like a very cruel con job that's been going on way too long. Doesn't that sound a little fairy tale-ish? If there were a god then why would he/she/it/they let prayers go unanswered, forever?
I think time is better spent helping those who need it and not just wasting time and energy on a no show. Saying "sending prayers" or "we'll pray for you" does not help anything or anyone.
Can anyone answer, truthfully and without quoting scripture or from some other text, that you have thought about unanswered prayers without using your religious model? It is possible. I highly recommend it.
Think outside the box of religion, what you have been taught or told. How do I really feel? Do I need to pray without ceasing or do I accept that it's never going to happen? Meditation and introspection sound more productive to me.
Anyone--google "why aren't my prayers answered" and you will pull up hundreds of excuse-making website from apologists that read "20 reasons why your prayers aren't being answered" or "40 reasons" or "50 reasons" offering every excuse from "You don't have enough faith" to "You brush your teeth sideways instead of up and down which is the way God wants you to brush them". I mean after a few years of this nonsense from some joke of a god, you'd think people would finally get a clue. I am guilty. I prayed for 60 years before I finally wise up, it took me that long to come to my senses.
prayer is also recognition and expression of gratitude for blessings received, not just for self but for all beings, for the earth and water and sun and air. it is an act of humility.
Yes! It is!
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmiej
Did you always say yes to your kids, exactly when they asked?
I think part of the problem is that 'we' think that because the bible says, "Ask and you shall receive" means that we 'shall receive' what we're asking for NOW, and HOW we want 'it'.
Jesus never said, "ask and you shall receive immediately, nor did he say to ask and you shall receive the EXACT way you want.
If I pray, "Dear Lord, please send me some money so I can get food to eat for a day", is it more important that I get the money, or that I get the food? If my neighbor comes over with a pot of stew...or if someone offers to buy me a hot dog...were my prayers answered?
A lot of times, prayers are answered, but not in the way we want. And because of that, quite often we think they weren't answered at all. To me, that's a mistake. God often looks behind the reason for our prayers, and distributes accordingly.
A lot of things have happened in my life because of prayer. Sometimes immediately, and sometimes months later. While *I* may think that I need an answer NOW, God knows that I don't.
But if I have enough faith in Him, He'll answer me when an answer is needed. Not necessarily when I WANT it, but when it's needed.
And what *I* think I need, isn't the same thing as when God thinks I need it.
Sometimes what we pray for, isn't want we need at all...
If I prayed in Jesus' name for my next month's mortgage payment in the amount of $1,474.23 to hold me until I started a job to cover the payments, and a stranger came to me the next day and said, "I got a word from the Lord that you need $1,474.23." that would instantly make a believer out of me. I'm still waiting for that to happen some 40 years later.
I'm extremely un-religious, but have decades of answered prayers. By now, they probably are close to the three-digit range. I'm not keeping count, and have no need to track them.
It doesn't matter if no one believes me. I'm not interested in anyone else's opinion or approval. I have a quality relationship with God, and he and I know what's going on. That's more than sufficient.
Those who have already decided it's not true, or worse, want to mock God, don't deserve any help from him.
If I prayed in Jesus' name for my next month's mortgage payment in the amount of $1,474.23 to hold me until I started a job to cover the payments, and a stranger came to me the next day and said, "I got a word from the Lord that you need $1,474.23." that would instantly make a believer out of me. I'm still waiting for that to happen some 40 years later.
I have been on both sides of stories like that. One time I was driving down the road to visit my mom when she was in long-term care. I was at a stoplight when I saw a homeless man standing on the sidewalk, holding up his sign. I honked my horn and motioned for the man to come to me. He did, and I rolled down my window and gave him $10. The guy almost fell backwards. He said, "You're not going to believe this, but this is the exact amount I just finished praying for!"
I can't even tell you how many times I've been on the receiving end of those kinds of prayers...
I'm extremely un-religious, but have decades of answered prayers. By now, they probably are close to the three-digit range. I'm not keeping count, and have no need to track them.
It doesn't matter if no one believes me. I'm not interested in anyone else's opinion or approval. I have a quality relationship with God, and he and I know what's going on. That's more than sufficient.
Those who have already decided it's not true, or worse, want to mock God, don't deserve any help from him.
I think that's kind of cold. Someone like mordant didn't just "decide" it's not true. He's posted on here a number of times about how, when he was a fervent believer, he prayed for help with extremely serious situations and came to realize that there was no difference in the outcome whether or not he prayed.
It's great that you got hundreds of prayers answered. Not all of us do. As a matter of fact, at one point in the past I became afraid to pray because it seemed as if whatever I asked for, whether it be a marriage/life partner or the healing of someone I loved, God would answer with the exact opposite of what I prayed for, almost as alerting the Divine to my needs and despair set in motion the cosmic fist that would come down to smash hope out of my soul.
Over time, I began to reduce my prayers to only ever asking for guidance, to be shown what I should do in any given situation. That seemed to actually "work" for period of time. I felt as if I was given answers, clear signs, or serendipitous occurrences that pointed me in the direction of which path I should take. That's gone silent, at least for now.
Over time, I began to reduce my prayers to only ever asking for guidance, to be shown what I should do in any given situation. That seemed to actually "work" for period of time. I felt as if I was given answers, clear signs, or serendipitous occurrences that pointed me in the direction of which path I should take. That's gone silent, at least for now.
Why should one believe that because we pray that our needs and wants should be resolved in our favor, regardless of the millions others who also have the same needs and wants and may also pray, or may not? What would make us so special?
Guidance is the most we can hope for and i believe prayer does grant us that. Not because we are special in any way, but because we gain insight that helps us to endure our difficulties without breaking and act in ways that seem right. We can only act, we have no means to shape the outcome.
I'm extremely un-religious, but have decades of answered prayers. By now, they probably are close to the three-digit range. I'm not keeping count, and have no need to track them.
It doesn't matter if no one believes me. I'm not interested in anyone else's opinion or approval. I have a quality relationship with God, and he and I know what's going on. That's more than sufficient.
Those who have already decided it's not true, or worse, want to mock God, don't deserve any help from him.
Oh, I get what kinds of three-digit prayers God answers for you, Thoreau. Things like he's helped you find your lost car keys a few dozen times and turns lights green for you when you're waiting too long at a red light and cures a headache for you now and then and makes the guy in front of you change lanes when he's driving too slow to suit your patience level. I get him answering those kinds of prayers for you.
Tell us: has he cured you of cancer or heart disease lately? Or restored sight to your blind eye? Or kept your house untouched in a hurricane when everyone else's around yours has been blown to the ground? No, I didn't think so.
Oh, I get what kinds of three-digit prayers God answers for you, Thoreau. Things like he's helped you find your lost car keys a few dozen times and turns lights green for you when you're waiting too long at a red light and cures a headache for you now and then and makes the guy in front of you change lanes when he's driving too slow to suit your patience level. I get him answering those kinds of prayers for you.
Tell us: has he cured you of cancer or heart disease lately? Or restored sight to your blind eye? Or kept your house untouched in a hurricane when everyone else's around yours has been blown to the ground? No, I didn't think so.
Wait a minute...
Just a few posts ago, didn't you say that if you prayed to God for $1474.23, and the next day, someone gave you that amount, you'd become an "instant believer"?
Why are you setting a higher 'standard' for Thoreau -- an obvious believer -- than for yourself?
Why should one believe that because we pray that our needs and wants should be resolved in our favor, regardless of the millions others who also have the same needs and wants and may also pray, or may not? What would make us so special?
Guidance is the most we can hope for and i believe prayer does grant us that. Not because we are special in any way, but because we gain insight that helps us to endure our difficulties without breaking and act in ways that seem right. We can only act, we have no means to shape the outcome.
Re the bolded - Exactly.
But in Christianity, we are taught to pray, to "take it to the Lord" when we have needs or desires or want healing for others. In fact, most churches of different denominations have a prayer list of members or their families or friends and may pray for them out loud during services. It's an exercise in disappointment, but when the prayers are not answered, we are scolded that we didn't pray the right way, or that there is something in our lives that's wrong that's preventing our prayers from being answered and we are supposed to figure out where our error lies, which adds guilt to the person making the supplication.
I've told this before, but I will again because it drives the point home of how this teaching can be harmful.
When I was a child, my same-age cousin was sick and I was instructed to prayer for her when saying my bedtime prayers, which were said aloud with my mother and/or father there. She had leukemia, but I did not understand that she was dying, only that she was sick and so I should pray and God would make her better.
But she didn't get better. She DIED. We were both six years old. Sometimes when we'd be saying our bedtime prayers, my little sister and would be goofing off, kicking each other under the covers in our double bed or whatever, because hey, we were kids. And in those times, I wasn't really thinking about the words I was saying in my prayers. When my cousin died, I came to the conclusion that it had happened because, obviously, I didn't pray correctly and wasn't always giving the prayer my full attention.
This impacted me literally for the rest of my life, because I can trace the beginning of the OCD symptoms to then. If God killed Kathy because of me, he might kill me, too, and now I had sinned by not praying the right way and I let her die. The way to prevent that dark thing God had sent to follow me around that might kill me was to take certain numbers of steps, to count, to say repetitive things in my head...and it just grew from there.
My cousin didn't die because I didn't pray correctly. She died because she had a fatal illness. I also had to pray for my aunt to "get better", which was never going to happen because she was mentally retarded and had cerebral palsy due to oxygen deprivation at birth.
My religious tradition taught me that if I prayed, God will heal, and if it didn't happen, it was my own fault. Yes, this is an extreme illustration of what can happen when such beliefs are taken literally, as they are with children, but this way of thinking stills exists to varying degrees in adults in Christianity because it is part of the religion to believe that prayers like this can be answered.
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