I have a conundrum for why people pray and what they pray for.
I have heard people pray for among other things world peace, a safe trip, good wheather, recovery from illness, etc.
People pray for these things all the time but if their “prayers” aren’t answered they resort to answers such as, “God works in mysterious ways”,“God has a reason for why this happened”,“God can’t control the natural way of things.”
Which brings about my question. If God has other plans we don’t understand or he can’t control the world around us, what is the use in praying??
I don’t pray before I drive to work everyday but i’m sure the church group in the mini-van prayed before they drove to bible camp for a safe trip. So why did they all die in a fatal crash?
Did they not pray hard enough? Did God have other plans?
Why did they pray in the first place if it was out of their hands?
Along these lines, I wonder about things people claim “are meant to be”. Is this just (what I call) covert synchronicity? Was it any more or less meant to be than, say, a precarious, curious, coincidental event in our lives we deem as synchronicity? - Jinx
Sorry, sorry! One more note about prayer: I wonder aren’t we praying for the very same things our father and our father’s father and our father’s father’s father…all prayed for, too? Do we see any results, or perhaps the results are too subtle to be measured? Perhaps the subtle answer to our prayers is just enough of something undefined to give us the strength to face the each new day…? - Jinx
Back in the good old days when I was a Christian I remember it being explained in a book by a popular Christian author (I’m sorry I can’t remember who) something like this:
The power of prayer is to make us feel better. The act of praying and achieving a somewhat relaxed meditative state and allowing all of our anxieties about whatever we’re praying for to be transferred to God is what it’s all about. The author went on to say that God doesn’t need our prayers. Praying is for us. To make us feel better to alleviate our worries to allow us to share our emotional burdens with an all powerful entity who cwe believe can take care of things. Prayers aren’t necessarily meant to get answered, they exist to make the prayor feel better.
At least that’s the explanation that made the most sense to me at the time.
Moderator’s Note: This question doesn’t have a factual answer; rather, it’s a matter of debate. As such, it isn’t suited for our “General Questions” forum (for “factual questions”), but belongs in our “Great Debates” forum (for “long-running discussions of the great questions of our time” as well as “religious debates”), so I’ll move it from GQ to GD now.
No real humanly-known answers for why some prayer is not “answered” (in the sense of the petition providing the subject of the prayer being granted – all prayer is answered, in a sense, though the answer may be “No, I ain’t gonna do that”).
As for the purpose of prayer, it consists in bringing us closer to God. An omniscient Being is already very well aware of the need that we’re asking Him about and even how we feel about that need; in asking Him, though, we submit ourselves to the Divine Will and join in His Plan, which may not include the fulfillment of our petition unless it is in the long-range best interests of everyone, which He presumably knows and we do not. The molestation of a young boy, whom I’ve met once as an adult, by his uncle ten years before I ever met anyone in the family started a concatenation of events that led to my being saved from dying of a heart attack; while I regret that he was ever molested, I can see God’s providence at work in my life in allowing that to happen with my survival, the happy marriages of two of the boy’s younger siblings, and the birth of seven wonderful children as other consequences of what happened.
Niccolo Macchiavelli, of all people, said it best:
My guess - it’s the same reason people wave their hands to make bowling balls go where you want. People like to pretend they are in control, even and especially when they aren’t. Praying is an attempt at a form of control - even though they might admit it won’t do any good, in some way people who pray want their prayers to be answered. (I’m assuming you mean prayers for something. Prayers just talking to God have another purpose.)
Similarly, God moving in mysterious ways is an attempt to give order to random events. Im personally have no problem with things happening randomly, but my observation is that most people find this very upsetting.
I’m definitely not your typical Christian, and I’m no bible scholar, but I’ve always been taught and it is my belief that prayer is not meant to be a petition to be answered.
Engaging in prayer is an invitation to allow God into your life. It’s a conscious action, a manifestation of your choice to accept God’s plan. While I do include in my prayers a request that God bless my friends, family and acquaintances, it’s not as if I feel that if I didn’t ask it wouldn’t be done. It serves as a reminder to take time to think about someone other than myself, and to realize the needs of others.
Prayer for me is a way of working through my own feelings about and my relationship with God. I’m not owed an answer, and I don’t go into it with expecations.
To me, the purpose of prayer is not one of supplication, but one of recognizing the ways in which the Lord has acted in my life, and teaching myself to be open to seeing His plan for me.
I believe that God does things when we pray that He will not do when do not pray. My list of verses that leads me to that conclusion is long, but it includes James 4:2 which says “You do not have because you do not ask.”
I think that prayer as a form of petition is illogical in a couple of ways. For one thing, it implies that God has not yet made a decision or that he can change his mind, so to speak. It also seems superfluous in the sense that an omniscient being would already know what you wanted without you having to ask for it.
As an agnostic, I don’t pray in a traditional western sense but I do meditate, and I try to examine my own motivations, desires, emotions, etc. and attempt to find a way to adapt my outlook to fit my circumstances. I can’t change the world, I can only control my own response to it. I find that the cognitive construct of enacting a mental “conversation” with a being outside of myself is useful in that it takes me out of my ego, forces me to articulate more thoughtful questions, allows for more honest “confessions” and so on. I imagine that I am talking to the universe, or to Brahman, or maybe to Buddha or to Jesus, or whatever else seems apprpriate to me at that time. I guess I do “ask” for stuff, but rather than asking for stuff to go my way, or for money, or for world peace, I ask for lucidity, optimism, compassion, self-esteem, tolerance, etc. I think it really works. I can ask for my hatred to be taken away and it is. I can ask for motivation to do things I don’t want to do, and I suddenly want to do them.
I’m a little torn on asking for the well-being of my family, because that’s something I can’t completely control, but I do ask that I make as few mistakes as possible as a husband and father, and I ask that I do nothing to hurt them, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
So I guess I go along with a lot of what velvetjones said. Prayer is a way for humans to make themselves feel better and act better.
I really like what Polycarp said, in that it is a way to get closer with God. It is kind od like caling your parents on the telephone, but a whole lot more personal.
Prayer is, for me, a very special time…I can commune and communicate with my God better than any other time. I really enjoy studying the Holy Bible, and atending church, but nothing is like prayer.
Not only is prayer a time to “ask, see, and knock”, but it a time to praise and worship, my Saviour. Prayer is a time to quite literally simply talk about that which is important in my life and thus, share my life with my God.
I always feel better both during and after prayer. Better, and much moer relaxed and peaceful, too.
Diogenes, while neither of us deifies the Bible, I’d suggest that according to the Gospels, we are expected to petition for the things we need in life, and for the relief of our concerns, and to pray for others in intercession. How I see this working is in God’s providence, seen from an eternal viewpoint, taking into account the content of prayer, and hence doing for us what is most efficacious to our own long-term benefit, not merely out of benevolence, but in answer to those prayers. It’s not as though God has no clue what we want or need until we ask – but in our asking, He is therefore positioned to grant those prayers that in His omniscience He knows will conduce to our benefit. If I may be allowed a lapse into country music theology, Garth Brooks had it right: “Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.”
I concur in meditation and devotion as “the highest” order of prayer – but remember that we are but human, and have quite real needs and dreams, and He is quite aware of them.
Note my Macchiavelli quote above? It’s not that He changes His intentions; it’s that the reason for what He does is (and always has been) amplified by the fact that it’s in answer to a human’s request.
As a kid, I always made out a list of things I wanted for Christmas for Santa (there’s that analogy again!). Obviously, my parents, being loving and with a slight tendency to spoil me in terms of material things, got me stuff from that list. Now, if I had gone on strike and not made out a Christmas list, would I have not gotten presents from them?
In eternal terms, nothing is changed – in human, temporal terms, there is a change – because God is now answering a prayer. That He knew you would pray for that back before He said “Let there be light” and so structured the Universe that your prayer was answered, among innumerably many other things, matters not a whit – the point is that you asked for X of Someone able to give it, and got it.
when I was younger, my prayers must have been rather amusing to God. I was, shall we say, ambitious in my praying (read that as asking).
However, as I matured, I learned that just because we want it, does not mean that we need it, nor that it would be good for us to have it.
God, being all-knowing, knows what we do need, what is good for us, what is bad for us, and what we will know how to use properly.
If your child asked you for something, that you knew would not help them in their growth process, or may even hurt them…would you give it to them just because they asked for it?
Probably not…and neither will God.
God wants us to be happy and healthy, and is willing to help us along that path.
So, just because we do not always get exactly what we want, maybe we should rethink what is was that we were asking for and consider the consequences of having it.
We might just find that God was right after all.
The Bible does teach us that when we make concession to the Lord, the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf, for the good of ourselves. The Bible, further teaches that there exists only one mediator between God and man, and that is Jesus Christ, the only One to whom we should direct our prayer, if not directly to God.
Romans 8:26
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Romans 8:27
And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
1 Timothy 2:5
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
I think I understand you better now, Poly, but I’m curious about one thing. Why would God choose not to answer prayers in circumstances which would seem to be the most desparate and the most deserving of divine intervention? (I’m trying not resort to Godwin here, so use your imagination)
Sometimes, God has a greater purpose behind what He allows or causes to happen. Such as the blind, and the crippled, that Jesus healed allowed the jews to witness the miracles and know that Jesus was God, and also to condemn Christ to death.
Through Christ’s death and resurection, we are blessed with salvation.
Also, through certain times of trouble, tribulation, testing, or whatever, we can be chastised for mis or mal-feasance, and through our chastisement, we learn to be better Christians, to better serve the Lord, or maybe serve as an example to others (which could be both and bad depending upon how well you respond).
So, sometimes, not answering our prayers may serve a much bigger and better purpose, that we may not be able to see at the time. But, whether good or bad, let us accept our state and serve the Lord with gladness.