(August 20, 2015 at 8:19 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: My cousin suffered multiple miscarriages because of fibroids. The last time she got pregnant, we were doing a three-way with my sister and decided to pray for her. My sister led the prayer. I never knew my sister could pray like that. It was a fervent, effectual prayer, the kind the Bible says availeth much. I thought for sure if god answered any prayer, it would be that one. My cousin lost that baby in the most emotionally painful miscarriage she’d ever had. Nothing was said about the prayer. They just swept it under the rug and I wondered if I was the only one who noticed how lumpy that rug was becoming.
One day, my cousin was sitting in church during baby dedications. The pastor, bless his heart, was trying to encourage the parents to be good parents, telling them god had entrusted them with the little souls. He was just trying to encourage them, but my cousin took it as an indictment. She ran out of the church in tears convinced that the reason she could not have a baby was because god did not trust her.
She never asked why, if god were in the business of keeping untrustworthy women from having babies, why was her husband’s daughter allowed to be born. Her husband’s daughter was beat up by her other’s lesbian lover. Why god want to pick on my little cousin? “Oh she’s a particularly bad woman. We better not let her have any kids.”
God will answer your prayers about little stupid things that you could do for yourself, but the one’s he doesn’t answer are the ones where people are really hurting, really in need and have nothing else that they can do.
I’m tired of Christians giving their testimonies that do nothing but show how screwed up their priorities are. I want to hear the untestimonies of those who asked god for something that any loving god would have granted.
What your sister did may have been fervent and effectual, but it was not a prayer. Look at the example of the Lord's Prayer in luke 11 starting at verse 1. It begins with recognizing God deity and authority. Then we ask for Him to usher in His final kingdom over this world, and over our own hearts and minds. Then We are permitted to ask for our daily needs, and to keep from evil... That's it. This is the only model of prayer we have been given. We don't have to pray those exact words,we can take that formula and put our own words in those subject matters. But those subjects make up what Christ Himself identified as a prayer. Everything else is petition. Petition meaning wishing or asking.
Why aren't petitions prayer? Because prayer is meant to change our minds to align ourselves with what God wants, not change what God is doing to suit what we want. That idea is perverse. Does that mean we can't ask God for stuff? Absolutly not. Paul in his writings tells us several times we are to pray and petition God. The thing is most of us (pop Christianity as well as the rest of us) no longer know the difference between the two.
If you or your sister truly wanted to pray for your cousin you should ask that she find true contentment in her heart with what ever God has or has not given her. Not to ask God to conform to her will. If not getting something like a baby determines whether or not you maintain your belief means, you don't have the basic elements need to have had even been saved to begin with. Meaning because our greatest command is to love the Lord God with all of your being. If not having a baby becomes between you and God, then you can not have the love for God that is required to accept the atonement offer by Him.
God is not a genie that we can trade worship for wishes. This is what your op says you thought/think God is. If you three, had such a corrupt picture of God why would God then answer your petition? By doing so it would only strengthen your corrupt idea of God. Why would a God who wants to love you and you love who God really is.. Why would He support something that would only take you further from Him?
Know, God indeed answers ALL prayer. We have just forgotten what prayer really is.
