When you tally up your prayer results, do you tend to count the hits and forget the misses?

Question

What percentage of your prayers seem to have any effect on the outcome of events? If you pray and ask God for it not to rain today during your picnic, and it rains anyway, do you forget about it, or chalk that up to a "no" answer whereas if you pray for a safe car trip on and you arrive unscratched do you tend to remember that as an example of answered prayer, or a "yes" answer. If two christians pray for opposite teams to win a football game, how come God only answers the prayer of one of them?

Answer 1

Shhhh! If they kept track of the effectiveness of their prayers they might see how useless it is.

Answer 2

Wow. Lots of questions here. Trying to save points?
I usually don't tally my prayers, hits OR misses. That's probably a mistake, because it is recommended to keep a prayer journal, to encourage you during the promised dry spells.

Speaking of rain, I had an interesting experience once. Our group prayed for the success of a church function. The day of the function, it rained. Everywhere EXCEPT the church grounds. We were dumbfounded! Upon leaving the grounds, the rain that was all around us started splattering on my windshield as I drove onto the apron leading to the street. That was about a four hour event! Go figure...

As to the prayers of football teams, I seriously doubt that God would bother unless He had a purpose of His Own there. God answers all prayer. But He can say 'Yes', 'No', or 'Later'. Maybe both teams will win... later. Or in some different way. We don't have the right to dictate anything to God.

Answer 3

I believe that when I pray I can't always get what I want. There are over 1 billion people on the planet. Could you imagine if everyone had their wish? There wouldn't be a need for the lottery.

I don't consider prayer a hit or miss activity. I pray for 2 reasons - 1) to praise God for all the blessings I have received and continue to receive and 2) to ask him for guidance so that I can continue to worship him and do what is right before his eyes.

Answer 4

First off I don't think in the grand scheme of things a ball game is important enough to pray over. I don't understand everything, but I think that if you are listening to God...you regularly fast and dedicate yourself to God, ALL of the important prayers will be answered. If I pray for it not to rain on my picnic then I figured that probably the earth needed it more than I needed my fun.

Answer 5

In a book I read, an atheist conducted an experiment in which she prayed to a teddy bear, and kept tabs on the results. Not surprisingly, prayers to the teddy bear had slightly better results than she previously got when as a believer she had prayed to god.

And spare me the ''if you could see the future you could see why god sometimes says no''. I've heard the Garth Brooks song, thanks.

Answer 6

Well.. since we are human, and prone to selfishness and limited brain power.... we will never really know if our prayers are going to be "good" for ourselves, or for others in the long run. therefore, just cuz we Want something to happen, doesn't mean it Should happen, or it will make you a better person. in fact, look at us now! we expect to get what we want, when we want it? how spoiled, selfish, rude are we? =T... do u give ur kids everything they want? NOPE. u try ur best to do what is right by them and for them, and even then ur not guaranteed they will choose the right path each time. u just have to try ur best to instill good wisdom and morals and values, and hopefully they will do the "right thing".

i have 2 recent prayer requests that were answered..and both right away. and i realize now, that they are the few times that i truly broke down and cried and wanted these things, not just for my selfish needs..but for the greater good of my life, and others in my life. i've never had that happen before! i believe i have been slowly changing under God's Grace, because i am slowly accpeting it and realizing that it makes me Happy to do what is good and right, not because i hope to be blessed by it, but because i Already am blessed by God. so even tho the world throws numerous negative things into our lives, i hope i can be the type of person who forges ahead, takes lemons and makes lemonade out of it! Sweet lemonade too! :) i don't blame God for anything..in fact..i know now that all the bad things i've experienced growing up, coupled w/ the good things, have helped to shape me into a better person today. and i had to struggle with it. i had to Choose to learn from it, instead of letting it make me a selfish, negative, stunted individual. i choose to learn, i choose to grow, because i think it's worth it and i see it helping me daily. so praise God for all the wonderful things, and praise God for all the bad things..because all the bad things have *potential* to become good, which is why Jesus is so wonderful!

Answer 7

The misses are you asking for stuff that God purposely withholds in light of your spiritual progression. Have a Jim Dandy day!

"It has been believed heretofore in the world that there is one devil that presides over the hells; that he was created an angel of light; but having become rebellious he was cast down with his crew into hell. This belief has prevailed because the devil and satan, and also lucifer, are mentioned by name in the Word, and the Word in those places has been understood according to the sense of the letter. But by "devil" and "satan" there hell is meant, "devil" meaning the hell that is behind, where the worst dwell, who are called evil genii; and "satan" the hell that is in front, where the less wicked dwell, who are called evil spirits; and "lucifer" those that belong to Babel, or Babylon, who would extend their dominion even into heaven. That there is no one devil to whom the hells are subject is evident also from this, that all who are in the hells, like all who are in the heavens, are from the human race (see n. 311-317); and that those who have gone there from the beginning of creation to this time amount to myriads of myriads, and every one of them is a devil in accord with his opposition to the Divine while he lived in the world" (Heaven and Hell n. 544).

Answer 8

I have seen a nice commercial sometime ago : God sitting on a fuzzy cloud in Heaven, in front of his laptop and checking his mails. He was answering "yes" one by one, until he get tired or something and pressed "yes to all"... :)

By the way, I think praying is not the same with asking...........

Have a nice day, and thanks for the question !

Answer 9

God can heal anybody of something alongside with an amputee's limb. yet those Judas Preachers are pretenders to learn greater suitable congregations skill and money. and that they have not got any skill to heal anybody of something. they are able to fool different the folk different the time. yet they won't be able to make limbs to advance formerly the cameras. they are able to purely pretend to heal illnesses which will not be able to be shown genuine or fake. backside li ne is: They lie for the almighty dollar.

Answer 10

God answers all my prayers with a yes, no or maybe later.I wouldn't waste his time on a football game.

Answer 11

All prayers are answered according to God's time.