The Power of Prayer

Great Debates
1

I’d like to hear people’s first-hand stories of a time when prayer really worked. I’m thinking Christian prayer, but no need for exclusivity here - all faiths welcomed.

Although I have had one or two interesting experiences, by and large I’m skeptical. I believe in God, all right, and that he listens to us, but I have trouble believing he then does anything about it. My attitude toward prayer is do it, then forget about it. Don’t pray for anything too specific, because you’re sure to be disappointed.

I was a complete religious skeptic for years, and before that, my religious upbringing did NOT believe in this sort of thing AT ALL, or at least did not attempt it. Ours was a quiet and inactive God.

Here’s the story that has me rattled: a second-hand story, unfortunately. My dad is an evangelical Christian, a musician, he and his wife out of work for about 2 months and getting hard pressed to pay the mortgage. He wanders into a construction site one day, meets a carpenter, and gets to talking. The carpenter is also a musician and a Christian. He lays hands on my dad and prays for him to get work. My dad said he didn’t expect anything to happen. Starting the next day and over the next week, he and the wife were deluged with good jobs, a couple of them the biggest projects they’ve ever taken on. Dad went back to tell the carpenter, who was unsurprised.

Now I know, and my dad knows, this could have been coincidence. I don’t want this thread to be a GD, there’s plenty of good stuff there and elsewhere on the philosophical and theological aspects of this sort of thing. I’m just interested in people who believe this happens, and believe it has happened to them. I want to hear more stories of this kind. Dissenters are perfectly welcome to post too, though.

Sorry if this was a bit rambly.

2

With respect and in the interest of balance, nothing I’ve ever prayed for has come through.

3

Ditto Francesca. With the possible exception that a few things that have come through would seem to suggest that any alleged almighty diety is more of a practical joker rather than a compasionate father. Examples:

• Pray for a bigger house, next day a wall falls down exposing inside of house to back yard.
• Pray for a million bucks, next day caught in stampede of wild antelope.
• Pray for better love of life, next day make myself sick eating too much cereal.

Well, those weren’t my exact prayers, but that’s the way my prayers tend to be answered.

4

OK, I’ll start.

My father is not a religious man at all. He (unlike me) is not Orthodox. He doesn’t keep kosher, doesn’t observe Shabbos, etc. His observance (at least to my knowledge) was perfunctory at best.

Anyway, my stepmother came down with lukemia about 15 years ago. At one time, my stepmother was so bad that she was thought to have less than a few hours to live. The doctors told him that she would not last the night. My father shocked us all by calling us (my sister and myself) and asking us to pray. Never would have expected that of him.

Anyway, I’m not going to say that it was our prayers that did it. There are any number of possibilities. The doctors could have been wrong, she was stronger than they gave her credit for, etc. I’d like to think, however, that our prayers helped. In any event, my stepmother is still with us now, happy and healthy. And the doctor told my father that he will never “write off” a patient again like that.

Zev Steinhardt

Zev Steinhardt

5

Well, I’ve never prayed for anything, being an atheist. But my friend Michael is a good Catholic—goes to church and everything. His parents came down with diabetes-related heart trouble and cancer, about ten years apart. Michael prayed and prayed and went to church and had the congregation pray, too.

Both his parents eventually died in terrible agony. Hmm. Guess “God works in mysterious ways.”

6

The unfortunate thing about praying for people not to die is, they always die in the end anyway. Maybe we’re better off praying for loved ones’ current good, not an indefinite future of good.

7

Um, well, I’ve gotten to be pretty good friends with the Virgin of Guadalupe.

I found a website dedicated to her, and on the site there was a reproduction of a painting of the V of G fighting the Devil. Since I’ve always had an affinity for saints who kick ass and take names, I downloaded and printed it, then took it to a copy place and had holy cards made of it (along with a couple of more traditional renderings of the V of G), and composed a prayer to her inspired by the image. (won’t put it here, but if you’re really curious, you can e-mail me and I’ll send it along).

Anyhoo, after losing three jobs in the space of a year (no fault of my own), I stumbled upon this image, and started asking the V of G to intercede for me to get a job that would be permanent. Apparently, she did so. Also, when the casino started splitting tokes table for table, I’ve asked her to intercede for me to have an income sufficient to meet my expenses, and again, she came through.

Prior to this, I had never felt any particular devotion to the Blessed Mother, but I have found her to be a powerful intercessor.

8

Based on what I’ve learned in the evangelical church, supplication is only one kind of prayer. These sorts of prayers are most likely answered when they are congruent with God’s goals, are unselfish and are for others. But you can never know in advance when a prayer will be answered. If statistics were kept on such things, I would suppose that intercessory prayer is much more effective than prayer for self. If all prayers were answered immediately, it wouldn’t require any faith to pray.

Not that you asked, but other important forms of prayer include adulation, confession and thanksgiving.

9

My 10 year old nephew once prayed to God for something, didn’t get it and then prayed to the Devil for it and got it. I’m not sure what “it” was, probably a video game of some sort.

10

I’m in the “God (or whoever’s “up there”) has one helluva sense of humor” camp, and so do not, as a rule, tend to make too many requests.

This is not necessarily because I don’t think my prayers will be answered, but because I’m thinking like Attrayant, and am always afraid I’ll leave out that ONE little detail that will give God the loophole to pull a fast one on me.

For example, if I ask merely to fall in love and leave it at that, I’m always afraid I’ll wind up falling head over heels for a gay man who is married and has two weeks to live or something. But it takes way too much energy to try to close all of the loopholes…

I guess there are other issues as well (will I lose faith if my prayers aren’t answered, will I use prayer as a substitute for motivation/action, etc… plus the fact that I’m never really quite sure what I want), but overall I’m too afraid I’ll wind up being the butt of a huge cosmic joke. :wink:

So if I do pray, I try just to say Thanks, and mean it, hoping that’ll get me some brownie points. :wink:

11

Oh, and in regards to the OP…

My mother once prayed for something to happen so that my cousin (who’d been busted on drug charges after repeated offenses, and was out on bail pending his trial) wouldn’t have to go to jail…

He died.

A couple of years later, she prayed for a change in her life…

My dad died.

I think she’s stopped making requests, too.

12

This is about as creepy as The Monkey’s Paw. Note to self: don’t pray for a change in my life.

When I think like this, it’s when I’m being deliberately cynical. I can’t avoid thinking God is a cosmic jester sometimes, but I try to remember that God is Love and wants the best for me, but I may not recognize “the best” for what it is (appearances being deceiving and all). In other words, I might pray for lots of money, but my spiritual condition might require material poverty right now, so God is still looking out for me, in the long perspective, by denying my request.

Instead of trying to close the loopholes, try praying for God’s will for you. Maybe it’s not what you think it is.

All my comments in this thread, by the way, are so IMHO it’s not even funny. I am a new Christian with little faith, and my authority on these matters is exactly zip.

13

Hmm. Let’s see… I was in an Alpha group (intro to Christianity) with a very nice woman who became a Christian because of it. When we got to the section on intercessory prayer, she asked us to pray for her for an unspecified request. During the next session (it was once a week), during discussion she told us that she had been suicidal and severely depressed, and that night, when we prayed for her, she decided to live. No, that’s not the miracle part. She was allergic to bee stings- the “third time you die” kind of allergic, and she’d already had two stings and almost died on the last one. She’d started a treatment a while ago that could reverse the effect enough to give her three more chances, but it was expensive, she was apathetic, and she’d stopped halfway, which meant she had to start again from the beginning.
She went to her doctor, and he said that he’d have to test her current allergic reaction first, before treatment. He tested her. She was no longer allergic to bee stings. I understand that that doesn’t happen. It’s impossible. She attributed it to our prayer, and God’s giving her a fresh start, once she decided to live.

It’s interesting that so many people feel that prayer is an uncontrollable force, and that God is nasty enough to enjoy granting harmful requests. The Cosmic Sadist. Hmm.

14

Did you have any reason, other than the fact that she told you what you wanted to hear, to believe her stories?

15

Well, I’ve prayed a lot over the health problems of my parents and I really feel that God has been looking out for them. No, the health problems didn’t just magically disappear, but we have averted much worse problems several times. For example, I feel we are very blessed that my father (already a stroke survivor) was able to have a 99% blocked artery discovered BEFORE it led to a stroke on the other side of his body. It could have very easily gone undetected until a catastrophe struck (since, for reasons I still don’t understand, it apparently hadn’t occurred to his docs to monitor his carotid arteries in the years after the first stroke). The part that makes me feel particularly fortunate is that, even after it was discovered that he had a serious blockage, at first it looked like they couldn’t do anything about it (conventional surgery was considered too risky), BUT THEN we learned of an experimental procedure that allowed the problem to be taken care of without complications.
That is not the first kind of close call; just a recent example. I give thanks on a daily basis because my parents have been able to survive numerous serious health problems.

There are lots of other smaller things that I feel God played a hand in. I try not to ask for too much though…I feel better focusing on the things that are very important to me (like the health matters). As they say, the things such as money don’t matter much if you don’t have your health.

16

Likewise, one could ask you whether you have any reason, other than the fact that her story doesn’t mesh with your view of the world, to disbelieve her stories?

I too have seen many prayers answered, from the trivial to the profound, and Yes, every single one of them may have been the result of a coincidence. We will never know that, at least, not in this world. Prayer is so much more than a divine shopping list - it is the foundation that the relationship of my faith is based on. Prayer involves thanksgiving, confession, praise, adoration and supplication.

The OP asks for stories of answered prayer - here’s my own. When we moved to London, I had wanted to take a break from teaching, but ended up doing supply teaching because there is a great demand and it is very well paid. After two months I was hating it so much that I threw in the towel without any real idea of what I could do instead. The wife and I are both devout Christians, so our natural response was to pray about it. I had no other really marketable skills except for an interest in computers and an apptitude to learn technical skills quite quickly (the only other job that I’d had was as a waiter). Nevertheless we prayed that I would be able to find work in a computer-related field. A friend taught me how to use a couple of web-design packages and I thought I might be able to find work that way. But we couldn’t survuive on just one income, so I went and signed up with a functions company (supplying waiters and kitchen staff to various functions) that a friend had worked at several years ago and really enjoyed. Well it was the dodgiest place I have seen in a long time - two desks in a basement room with a ricketty staircase leading down, but I thought I’d give it a shot.

My first assignment (three days later) was a one day placement at a company called XXXX (names changed to protect the innocent) where they were so delighted that I spoke English that they asked me to stay a further two days!! While I was there, I got chatting to one of the management who, when he found out the kind of work that I was looking for, mentioned that they had an opening (a new post, just created) in their IT support dept. and would I like to apply? Well, I took the job description home with me that Friday and fell into despair - I had none of the skills they were looking for. But my beloved wife prayed with me and convinced me that it was worth giving it a try. So, I wrote up a letter of application and dropped it and my CV off on the Monday. On Tuesday I had an interview, where I was very upfront about my meager expereince and skills, but tried to emphasise my keen-ness. On Wednesday they offered me the job - I started the following Monday and two years later, here I am working at the same temporary desk in the Finance department (:)) The job has turned out to be within my abilities, although it was a very steep learning curve at the beginning!! It has been the perfect springboard to change careers with, as I have had to learn a little of everything (database, network, website, DTP, hardware, etc) and feel like this is a career path that I can continue with.

Could it have been all a happy coincidence - sure!! Do I believe that - well, no, but my reasons for that are based on my faith, and I don’t expect anyone who doesn’t share that faith (such as Czarcasm) to accept those reasons…

Gp

17

grimpixie, should incredible claims be accepted without any proof whatsoever just because it supposedly involves a diety you happen to believe in? To be consistant, you would also have to believe that the followers of Transcendental Meditation can levitate at will, Uri Gellar can teleport, John Edwards can speak to the dead, all without any evidence. Did you even question this allergy where “the third time you die”, as stated by the unknown friend of Lissla Lissar? Her story doesn’t just mess with my view of the world, it messes with common sense and reality.

18

That’s actually another reason I don’t make requests–I’m never sure if what I think I want is:

a) what I really want, and/or

b) something that would be good for me.

And the cynic in me figures that if it’s something that is not, in fact, good for me, The Jester On High will let me learn that the hard way…

Besides which [Pollyanna Warning], I can honestly say that I am quite happy with my life as it is, and pretty much always have been (I mean, there’ve been some crappy moments–the aftermath of certain breakups, or the death of someone I love–but overall, I’ve had it good). Sure, there’s stuff I think I’d like to have, but I’d be perfectly happy if my life stayed exactly as it is.

I might be a little concerned if I failed to age, or still had this same job in 20 years, or if my puppy remained a puppy for the rest of her life…

19

Spathiphyllum, why would this God fellow help out your parents and kill my friend Michael’s, even though he prayed, too? Did he pick the wrong brand of Christianity in Catholocism?

20

This thread reminds me of the late comedian Bill Hicks’ routine on wanting to hear the following postgame interview:

Sportscaster: “Why’d you fumble in the 4th quarter?”
Football Player: “Well, I wasn’t going to bring it up, but now that you mention it… it’s that Jesus guy! He HATES us!”

Which made perfect sense to me – if the winners got help from the deity, shouldn’t the losers rightfully be able to blame him?

Also, the immortal quote by Homer Simpson, listing reasons for which he’d decided to quit attending church: “… and what if we’ve picked the wrong religion? Then every week, we’re just making God madder and madder”.