Answered Prayer

[mwc]

Because Jesus said, Matthew 18:" 19"Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

God knows that no two people ever really agree with one another.

 

mwc

[scotter]

Pug in your joss stick experience, you laid out two options for God: lit on – (Christian) God failed your challenge; off – after you failed to lit on consecutively, you concluded that God overwhelmed your challenge and you surrendered.

 

AND how do you know the prayers have NOT been answered. Just not answered the way you want it to be answered!

 

Using your own words, the inference drawn by you from the experience may not be relevant: thus we still do not know if the coincidence is from God’s interference, and we still do not know God’s interference means your conclusion that God wants you to be a Christian.

[trashy]

MG,

 

One of the first times I had an 'epiphany' regarding my faith was when, as a youth, I ran across Charismatic teaching. One central tenet is that of taking the Bible and Jesus' words as literal truth. In other words, when Jesus said "Ask anything and it shall be done" they took him at His word and expected it. Unlike my Southern Baptist upbringing this line of thinking requires much delusion to avoid disappointment. But the fact remains that the Southern Baptists and most of the rest of Christianity have to expend much energy in explaining why we really can NOT take Jesus' at His word. He won't really answer all your requests like He said. Having just a miniscule amount of faith won't really move mountains, either literally or figuratively. Miracles don't really happen.

 

So I grew up w/ a fairly mild expectation of answer to prayer. Your example would not have shocked me.

 

Thus, I did not depart Christianity due to any sort of let-down due to unanswered prayers. I daresay that most unbelievers deconverted for a variety of reasons, w/ unanswered prayer being near the bottom of the list....

 

I was watching a video of a sermon on 1 Peter -- I forget the speaker's name -- anyways, he's a long time pastor and he got to talking about answered prayer.  I know that topic is a hot topic for many people here -- if I recall correctly, some here left the faith because of unanswered prayers.

[BeccasStillSeeking]

Um no, I haven't misread it.  Perhaps you won't be banned for your actions, but you certainly are acting like a complete jerk.

From the forum guidelines.

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I'm just putting him on my iggy list. Now he's whining about "straw man" arguments, which don't bloody apply. He'll put his own reasoning through all sorts of contortions to avoid admitting that he seriously screwed up. I need to be witness to that? What a worthless prick.

[Guest aexapo]

Count me in on that too, unanswered prayers was not a reason at all.  The whole prayer issue only came up with me AFTER deconversion and seeing those scriptures in a whole new light.  While a Christian, I made the same excuses, "not god's will', 'in his perfect timing', 'he is allowing this for a reason', 'my faith must not be strong enough'."  Anything to make my Jesus , not be a liar.

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Beautifully said!

[Amethyst]

I'm just putting him on my iggy list.

 

Not a bad idea.