A few questions about God’s involvment, or lack of it, in this world.
1)If you believe in guardian angels, what is their criteria for helping people. In other words, what will they protect you from, and what won’t they protect you from, and why? And if you believe in one, and get severly injured, why? Was the angel slacking off? Do you think it’s a punishment from God? What?
2)If believe in miricals, miricals being devine intervention, (I believe that they’re rare, if they occure), again, what is the criteria for God interveining? The Bible mentions persistance, yet I could pray and pray till I’m blue in the face, and I know that my wife won’t get miraculously cured of her muscular distrophy.
3)Do people have an ordained time to go? If so, if they’re sick, why bother praying for them? If it’s their time, it’s their time. If it isn’t, it isn’t.
I don’t believe in guardian angels.
I believe miracles are possible, but I think they are/or would be a lot rarer than what’s being reported. It’s late and I can’t really think of an instance where a miracle would be necessary. Perhaps if the majority of the world did not believe in God, another miracle would be in order.
I asked this a while back, only under the presumption that shouldn’t you be praying for them to have a quick death -my logic at the time being that they would get to heaven quicker and all of the love (plus more) would be waiting in heaven, and none of the pain.
Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? Hebrews 1:14
Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey His word. Psalms 103:20
Man’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed. Job 14:5
In my reading of the scriptures, it seems clear that angels are sent by God to His children as guidance and protection, for the myriad of ways in which that might occur. I would sum it up thus: God has determined your number of days, but Satan cannot know them. As such, Satan could be expected to wage war against God’s children in any and every manner possible. For further reading about angels: Isaiah 37:36 (power), Daniel 7:10 (number), Exodus 23:20-23 (authority), 1 Peter 1:12(curiosity).
As to your additional questions; I can’t say that I believe angels ‘slack off’ as you put it, nor do I necessarily subscribe to the notion that ‘bad’ things happening to ‘good’ people are due to punishment by God. It seems a cop-out to assign divine intervention to actions more readily identifiable as mortal intent and imperfection.
In your estimation is a miracle only that event of grand proportion, public acknowledgment and vast scope? Perhaps those miracles which may have occurred in your life already have been, when noticed, interpreted as ‘luck’ or ‘coincidence’.
Might I gently suggest that perhaps you’ve indicated the answer to your own question when you write ** I could pray and pray till I’m blue in the face, and I know that my wife won’t get miraculously cured…**.
But I tell you, in this you are not right, for God is greater than man. Why do you complain to Him that He answers none of man’s words? For God does speak - now one way, now another - though man may not perceive it. Job 33:12-14
I believe God hears and answers all prayers. Sometimes the answer is ‘No’. In times of great stress and turmoil, this is the last answer any of us is prepared to receive. Knowing, however, that our salvation and life are in God’s hands, I lean on His word for the strength to continue.
What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to Him? Deuteronomy 4:7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
My sympathies with you and your wife. I will remember you in my prayers.
- What’s the saying: “Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die”. Gotta be somewhat disconcerting for a true Christian who is afraid of death.
I do believe in guardian angels, however, it is my understanding that hey are not here to protect us from the phyiscal in most cases. They do battle in the spirit realm for us. So the case of why did our gaurdian angle not save us from something physical is not one that can be made IMO. However to look at it a bit differently, if they do help us in the physical realm, how many things do we avoid because of them that we never notice. Angels are not all powerful, as is God, and therefore things would be beyind their influence, including decisions we made of our own freel will. Making certain choices may essentially nullify an angels ability to help you. There is an interesting sub-apocryphal book that has a lot to say about angels. I do not espouse that this is the Word of God by any stretch, but it is interesting. It is part of the pseudepigrapha. You can read it online here , it is know as the Book of Enoch
The Bible has a lot to say on the issue of prayer and faith. Christ speaks of it frequently in the book of Matthew. The message is also evidenced in his miracles. Each time a miracle happened, Christ said that it was by the person’s own faith that it had been done. All of Christ’s teachings on prayer seem to based in believing you have recieved when you asked for the thing. This would tell me that repeatedly asking for the same thing shows a lack of faith. In my own prayer life, I ask once and thank the Lord for giving it to me, whether I see thing manifest or not!
It is paramount that God does not involve himself without our permission. His convenant with us is one of free will, so he cannot just make things happen without nullifying that covenant. We can submit ourselves to his will, and allow him to use us as he sees fit, but is a choice we must make, and a choice we can stop making. I think that would explain his seeming lack of involvement in our daily affairs.
I firmly and respectuflly disagree with NaSultainne on the issue of answered prayer. I saved this for the end, because all of the references I was going to make can be made here as well.
Matthew 21:18
Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city, he was hungry.
19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.
20When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked.
21Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.
22If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
he made a similar promise earlier in the same book:
Matthew 18:18 "I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
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.
20 For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”
IMO what most people see as answer of “no” to prayer is simply lack of faith or doubt. We are humans, and as such we have a propensity for doubt, this is caused by original sin. We can never achieve Christ’s level of faith while we are on this earth.
I mean no disrespect in my disagreement, but I firmly believe that we can take Christ at his word. I pray that we will all someday accept the full promises God has given us!
This could become a very long post if I tried to approach the last point, so I will not, I will continue briefly on the same point. As we are called to submit ourselves to God’s will, we may find that we begin to pray and leave things up to His will. This is better prayer in my opinion. A great writer who has become a mentor to me through his books, C.S. Lewis penned a series of lletters on the subject of prayer that is a wonderful read for anyone interested. It is call Letters To Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. The dissertations range from analysis of liturgical prayer to simple missives. I highly reccomend this book!
The most wonderful thing about being a Christian is that I can respectfully disagree with others on issue such as these and know that when all is said and done it matters not if I was right on the subject of prayer, all that matters is that we all believe that Christ dies for our sins, and we will all be in Heaven together to find out the answers!
God bless and please excuse the wordy post!
OK I can’t not comment of the last point. But I will keep it brief. My favorite passage dealing with death in the whole Bible comes from Paul:
Philippians 1:20 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.
21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!
23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far;
24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.
Paul was in prison sentenced to death at the time of this writing, he did not die then! This is a perfect example of submitting to the Lord’s will everything. I know it does not answer the question “Should we pray for someone who is dying?” but i think it is fairly applicable.
HAH! Do all you people still believe that the concept of evolution was conjured up by some scientists to spite Christianity? C’mon, lets get real here, there is no way that all that happens. All these scriptures are still basically based on Aristotelian cosmology that we know now is not correct. If there was all this stuff, then there would be a sphere of celestial space around the earth called the heavens, and I’m guessing that the reason Columbia crashed is not because it bounced into the barrier between Heaven and Earth.
I think you misread the forum this post is in, this is not the pit, and I for one would appreciate you respecting the beliefs of others and not insulting us when we have discussions of those beliefs
>if you believe in one, and get severly injured, why? Was the angel slacking off? Do you think it’s a punishment from God?<
Physical injuries and illness are not punishment from God. They are conditions that we create in our lives because there is something that needs to be learned. Your Guardian Angel is hardly slacking when these “thousand natural shocks” strike; she is closer to you in these moments than any other, holding your heart and whispering courage into your ear.
OK, I’ll give this a shot.
I don’t believe in guardian angels; I believe in God’s protection and mercy. To me, they’re sort of like wearing a bullet-proof vest inside a tank.
Not only do I believe in miracles, I believe I’ve been on the receiving end of one. I don’t know what the criteria is for God intervening. The last time I was hospitalized for depression, a fellow sufferer asked me why God doesn’t do miracles any more. This was about five months after a miracle had hauled me out of a near catatonic state. I told her grand scale miracles in the Old Testament didn’t work all that well. Remember, while wandering in the desert, Moses’ people complained that all they got to eat was manna. Also, to me, large scale miracles are a sort of cheat – breaking the rules God set up to run the universe.
Small scale miracles and answered prayers, however, are a lot more common. I’ve told this story here before, so those of you who’ve read it, please feel free to skip to the next paragraph. A few years ago, I was driving through the mountains on my way to a church retreat. About halfway up the largest one, there was a car stopped by the side of the road. I know nothing about cars, but for once in my life, I stopped and asked if there was anything I could do to help. Sure enough, there wasn’t, but I said I was some sort of Christian and I offered to pray for them. I got back in the car and prayed something to the effect of “Lord, please send someone to help these people.” About halfway down the other side of the mountain, I saw a police car sitting waiting for speeders, I assume. My first thought was “How fast am I going?” Then it hit me. I asked God to send someone to help. There’s a police car. OK, now I get it. “Somebody” means me. I was past the police car at this point, so I did a u-turn, drove back to the police car and told the policewoman inside it what I saw. She drove back to help the couple. I got back in my car, knees shaking, and carried on to the retreat. I wasn’t going to say anything about this; it was almost a little too much of a religious experience for me, but apparently God had other plans. I was driving a bright yellow Geo Metro convertible at the time, a rather noticeable car. A car full of other women going to the retreat, including my minister’s wife, had passed while I was talking to the police officer. They wanted to know if I’d gotten stopped for speeding, and the story came out.
My point and my belief is that nowadays God uses human beings to create miracles and they’re smaller and more personal. That retreat marked the beginning of a phase in my life in which my faith has grown stronger and deeper and I’ve done a lot more exploration.
That’s the easy part of the question. **Joel[/b, I don’t know why your wife has muscular dystrophy, just as I don’t know why a good friend’s wife had a stroke. He’s done Christian healings! Why can’t he heal her? For that matter, why hasn’t God answered my prayers for a new job? I don’t believe the strength of a person’s faith determines whether his prayers are answered, and I certainly don’t believe physical affliction comes from a lack of faith. As evidence, I offer John, Chapter 9 which talks about a beggar who was blind since he was born. In verse three, Christ says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” The only answers I have are incredibly unsatisfactory, and if I am fortunate enough to wind up in the presence of God, this is one question I have every intention of plaguing Him with, Creator and Most High or not! 
All I can do is trust God, assume he knows what he’s doing, and echo the words of a man asking for help for his son in Mark 9:24, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”
This is something I wonder about myself. Quite frankly, I wrestle with the idea of praying for individuals at all. As I mentioned, a friend of mine had a stroke recently. I do pray for her, but I’m also aware that thousands of people have strokes. Who is my friend that I should place her above all these others. Yes, I think she’s a neat, wonderful, good person, but there are people who think that about other people who’ve had strokes, and there might even be a few neat, wonderful, good people who don’t have anyone praying for them.
Excuse me. I’m drifting off topic. In situations like this, in the end, I ask that God’s will be done rather than mine. I don’t know why bad things happen to good people. I don’t know why some people recover, some people die, and some people never get sick. I do believe God knows when he wishes our lives to end, but I also know we foolish human beings do things which move it up some time. I believe that He loves me and that there are things I’m supposed to do in this life, but if I choose to commit suicide today or go out speeding in an ice storm, He will let me suffer the consequences of my actions, and then I suspect He’ll give me a good talking to. So, in the end, I pray for comfort and ease of pain for the person who’s dying and for their family and friends. Especially the family and friends. I suspect it’s either to be the one whose life is lost rather than the one who loses a friend.
I’m afraid this response hasn’t been nearly as helpful as it’s been long. I wish it could be shorter and more helpful.
CJ
No, actually I think you’ll find that I’m an ardent supporter of evolution.
I don’t appreciate your attempt at a hijack, but I was wondering how is this all based on Aristotelian anything, Aristotle was around in something like 400bc and to my knowledge the old testiment is older than that.
I don’t know that. God could cure her. However, most of us do not receive cures.
I will pray for you and your wife.
I didn’t say that bad things happening to good people is a punishment from God. I was just asking if that’s what anybody believed. My personal belief is that this is a natural world, and everything, or almost everything that happens is natural, and God’s involvement is very minimal.
For the purposes of this thread, I’m talking about events happening that seem unatural…a blind person being able to see again, without the aid of medical science, that sort of thing.
I hate that answer. THAT seems like a cop out. I bring up my wife as an example, because of passages like…
Matthew 7
8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
Matthew 21
21Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. 22If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
Luke 11
13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
These passages, and one other, I can’t remember it now, a parable about a son asking and asking his father for something, and finally the father gives in, due to the sons persistence, gives the clear impression, that if you ask, you’ll receive. Yet we know that’s not always true. Just like I’ve never heard of anybody successfully ordering a mountain to move anywhere.
In my opinion, it seems like what God gives is all spiritual. Ask for anything spiritual, more faith, strength and comfort to get through a difficult times, things like these.
[Fixed quote tags. – MEB]
quote:
Originally posted by Joel
3)Do people have an ordained time to go? If so, if they’re sick, why bother praying for them? If it’s their time, it’s their time. If it isn’t, it isn’t.
I don’t know why, but praying for somebody to die quickly, seems kind of morbid. I understand what you’re saying, but still.
I don’t mind the thought of dying. I know that my wife and mother would be very sad, and I don’t like that thought. But as long as I went quickly, the thought of dying doesn’t bother me at all.
I don’t know if there are guardian angels or not, but if there are, I would totally agree that there here to help us fight spiritual battles, and not physical ones.
quote:
2)If believe in miricals, miricals being devine intervention, (I believe that they’re rare, if they occure), again, what is the criteria for God interveining? The Bible mentions persistance, yet I could pray and pray till I’m blue in the face, and I know that my wife won’t get miraculously cured of her muscular distrophy.
The Bible has a lot to say on the issue of prayer and faith. Christ speaks of it frequently in the book of Matthew. The message is also evidenced in his miracles. Each time a miracle happened, Christ said that it was by the person’s own faith that it had been done. All of Christ’s teachings on prayer seem to based in believing you have recieved when you asked for the thing. This would tell me that repeatedly asking for the same thing shows a lack of faith. In my own prayer life, I ask once and thank the Lord for giving it to me, whether I see thing manifest or not!
But if a mirical isn’t manifest, then doesn’t that mean that it wasn’t performed?
It is paramount that God does not involve himself without our permission. His convenant with us is one of free will, so he cannot just make things happen without nullifying that covenant. We can submit ourselves to his will, and allow him to use us as he sees fit, but is a choice we must make, and a choice we can stop making. I think that would explain his seeming lack of involvement in our daily affairs.
Yes, but he’s our spiritual father, and sometimes parents get involved without their kids asking, for their own good.
I do believe that God isn’t that involved in our daily lives, but I don’t know why. I don’t really belive the only giving help when asked. I mean, wouldn’t that go against the passage…
Matthew 6
Do Not Worry
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[1] ?
This seems to indicate that you shouldn’t ask for God’s involvement in your life, because he knows what you need already and will provide it for you.
Although again, I think that passage must be talking about spiritual matters, because we DO have to think about, and sometimes worry what we’ll eat, and wear, and so on. Food and clothing and shelter come from us working for it, not from God magically giving it to us.
Yes, but my was, why pray for somebody to live, if God has an appointed time for everybody? If you believe that a person has an appointed time,then if it’s somebodies time to go, they’ll go, if not, they won’t. Right?
Right, and again, I merely asking a question, not making any statements. But the reason I asked was, because when people talk about guardian angels, they usually refer to them as protectors, keeping people from harm, physical harm. I know when I’ve gone on long trips, my mother would pray that my guardian angel would keep me from getting in a car crash.
I don’t really believe in them myself, or, if they do exist, then I think that they are here for spiritual comfort and support only.
That was a good reply you gave, and I want to focus on this.
There are plenty of passages in the bible that say, directly, or indirectly, ask and you shall receive. But if all you’re going to get, is what God want’s to give you, then, say for example, somebody is suffering horribly and you pray for them to get better, but they die a slow, lingering death, is that what God wanted, since he didn’t answer yours, and others prayers for healing?
quote:
Originally posted by Joel
The Bible mentions persistance, yet I could pray and pray till I’m blue in the face, and I know that my wife won’t get miraculously cured of her muscular distrophy.
Thank you. I was only using my wife as an example. The point being, that even though there’s the “Ask and you shall receive” and many other similar passages, do they apply to the physical world? I was just saying that I don’t think so, because, using my wife as an example, I can ask, but she’ll probably die uncured. And yes, they may soon come up with medical cures and you can say that that’s God working through the scientists, but then what about the people who died before the cure comes along.
Or what about a parent who’s child is kidnapped? The parent prays for the child’s safe return, and a week later a dead body is found. Again, the parent asked, but didn’t receive.