Comments on: Do You Believe in Prayer?

By: MInTheGap

MInTheGap — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:51:02 +0000

Rene, the problem with whole text plagiarizing is that it dilutes the original text in search rankings. It’s like you’re stealing content, visitors, etc. I’m glad that you linked back to my site, but I’d prefer that, in the future, you take a section and then link to the original instead of taking it all.

Fran, I’ve thought through this a few times, and I always struggle. I will admit that I’m not fully sure how to negotiate the passages that talk about God repenting of something and God’s sovereign will. What do I mean? Well, multiple times in the Old Testament, God said that He repented, or changed His mind, about something. He repented that He had made man right before the flood. He changed His mind about killing all the Jews and starting over Moses after Moses begged Him not to do it. And there are other accounts. How does that align itself with an all-knowing God? How can a God whose will is sovereign change His mind because of petition. And why would we need an Advocate with the Father if this were not possible?

I don’t know the answers here, all I have is a lot of questions.

By: Fran Carasone

Fran Carasone — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:18:18 +0000

I believe in prayer to the extent that it can change your attitude about a situation. I do not believe that prayer changes God’s will about anything. If you pray and the thing you are praying for or about happens, it’s because it was supposed to happen in the first place and not because God was influenced in any way by the prayer.

By: rene the rugrat

rene the rugrat — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:20:50 +0000

I am the plagiariser. It has been my experience that
people do not bother with links, or they look it over and if they have
anything to say they are too lazy to go back. And actually it is linked
(click on my title) I always cite my source.On a second note I am impressed you even found me because I found you stumbling around the ‘net.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:05:28 +0000

That’s a good point. Our culture is definitely steeped in “doing” rather than “listening.”

Amanda’s last blog post..Stone them?

By: The Space Between My Peers » Just Linking: January 25th, 2008

The Space Between My Peers » Just Linking: January 25th, 2008 — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:55:48 +0000

[...] Just in case you were wondering what kind of a Christian I am: I am this kind NOT this kind. And I do believe in prayer. [...]

By: MInTheGap

MInTheGap — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:51:00 +0000

I guess it goes back to what we mean by belief. I mean, they say that the demons believe in God and tremble– yet they are not saved. We say that we believe that prayer works, but we don’t have experiential belief we have theological belief.

Truth be told, prayer is powerful, and it changes things, but too often we get caught up in doing rather than waiting in listening. Too many times we’re off “doing the work of the Lord” not because He said “this is what I want you to do” but because we believe that we should be doing such and such. We’re a doing kind a of people.

Yet if you look through the Bible at the times when God actually used someone for His purpose, they weren’t off doing good works, they were cultivating a relationship with God where they were. And then God called them to service.

This is something that I’m struggling through right now– doing a workbook on Experiencing God for my devotions, and it really challenges what you think about how God speaks to you and the whole idea of doing what God wants done rather than guessing what God wants done and doing whatever…

By: Amanda

Amanda — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:26:04 +0000

Wouldn’t all of those things point back to a lack of belief in prayer?
Honestly, if we really believed it would work, we would do it, rather than just saying we believe in prayer.
Does that make sense?

Amanda’s last blog post..Stone them?

By: MInTheGap

MInTheGap — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:10:34 +0000

That’s a very good question, Amanda.

I think that it’s part the fact that it seems like it’s one way– and that when we don’t see immediate results we get disheartened. I think another thing is our lack of faith– we pray, but we don’t think anything will happen because things don’t happen immediately. I think we also live in a time and place where we believe (and things around us demonstrate) that we can take care of ourselves– there’s a lack of dependence. Lastly, I think that we aren’t truly serious about our relationship with God– we have more important things to do, it seems.

What do you all think?

By: Amanda

Amanda — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:43:07 +0000

I have to wonder why it is that we don’t put the time in. Is it because we’re lazy? Or is it because prayer is one of those things that “everyone agrees on” because we’re supposed to, yet we don’t really trust it?

Amanda’s last blog post..Stone them?

By: MInTheGap

MInTheGap — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:29:21 +0000

I think that I’ve found that prayer is one of the things that “everyone agrees on” and yet at the same time we don’t put the time in we should.

Hence the post…