Christians only PLEASE: When you pray and ask God for a positive outcome to a dilema, how do you KNOW...?

Question

that it is God who answers you? Do you HEAR a voice, just someone comes tells you, "God says...." or what? How?

Answer 1

When I pray for something specific like a dilema, I tell God I give this problem to Him to solve and He does.
When asking His advice, I do know the voice, way down deep in my soul, it is Gods answer.
Many times Gods sends me a message through someone else to relay to me. I do pray for His will be done, not mine and in His time.
wanna talk more about it, email me. Blessings~

Answer 2

God "speaks" in many forms. it's usually different for different people. for some, God speaks through a mouthpiece such as a pastor or preacher. for some, God speaks through His word, where the Spirit leads you to a peticular verse, usually for encouragement or reassurance. for some, God speaks in a dream or vision. some have an actual 'experience'. some will just be allowed to figure it out, as they may already know the answer. some just get the answer when it happens.

one of the hardest things to accept is that God does say "wait" or even "no" sometimes. How do we know it's God? I guess it requires actually having a relationship with God, so you know His way of speaking, the kinds of things He says, His nature, the impressions you get when He speaks....... His sheep know His voice. The devil is an imitator yes, but even the greatest imitator is no match for the original: Satan can appear to be like God, even say what you would expect God to say, but God said to test the spirits: you should know the 'little-things' about God and that voices of God will acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God; the devil and his demonic hosts are too proud for those kinds of things.

Answer 3

Me I don't know to be honest with you. I just leave it in God's hands how he will answer my prayer. When he answers it it's not necessarily for me but others as well, in ways that I cannot see but only he can.

There's an old Rolling Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and that's true in prayer too. God will not give you the answer you want. He will only give you what you need.

And sometimes the outcome can be positive.

As they say that God answers "Yes", "No", and "Wait". Just remember that all events that you bring to God in prayer are to bring glory to God and not to man.

Wow I hope I haven't said too much, but I hope it helps you to understand prayer a little bit more.

Answer 4

Well, different people receive answers in different ways.

I have known some people who say their answers to prayers come in a verbal form of some kind. I don't get anything like that, though.

Often what happens with me is that an idea or a thought pops suddenly into mind (that was not at all what I was thinking about previously), or I get a mental picture or a "mind movie" of how the situation should go. Often these pictures do not relate to situations I'm facing, but to something that a friend or family member is going through -- it's almost as if I've been given a message for that person.

So, I tell whoever it is what the message or "images" I got were, and so far, every time, the person finds that what I told them, that came to me out of nowhere, is what they needed.

I have no clue how this all works. All I know is that it does. I used to feel very bummed that I knew people who said they "heard" God or "felt HIs presence." I don't -- I never have.

And then, my best friend, who is a science-fiction reader like me, said to me, "well, silly, you don't have to hear Him -- God's telepathic!" Oho! That was the mental picture *I* needed to get.

Now I don't worry about it anymore. When I am praying, I ask God please to bless this person or that situation -- I just talk to Him about what's going on in our lives. A lot of times, I don't ask Him to do this or that specific thing -- that seems to me silly since He sees the whole picture, and I see 1 square centimeter of that picture. There are all kinds of things going on that I'm not even aware of, so I don't even try to dictate to God how I want things to be.

Case in point: I used to have this horrendous job, when I worked at the Radio Shack in my town. Hated it, hated it, hated it. Loved my boss, hated the job. Not enough pay, too many hours, and so on. But I needed the extra job in order to have health benefits, so I didn't dare quit. I kept applying and applying and applying to every other nearby job I could find, just to get out of selling TVs and cell phones to people... nothing. Nada. Not the teeniest nibble, not even an interview. I kept praying about it and telling God how miserable I was at the Shack and how much I wanted something else. And then, months later, it turned out that I began dating one of my regular customers and three months after that we were engaged. We've been married six years now, and I didn't know it was possible in this world to be as happy as we are.

An answer to prayer? Not exactly -- I didn't pray that I'd meet the love of my life while working at the Shack. I never felt or heard any "message from God" while I was desperately praying for any other job I could find. But--evidence that God works in my life and my husband's life? You bet. You see, he wasn't a Christian when we met (he became one after encountering God), so we wouldn't have met in church, and we had no social contacts in common. The ONLY place we would ever have crossed paths was in the neighborhood electronics store (he was and is an antique-electronics hobbyist)... where I would never have been in order to meet him, if I hadn't still been working there. And if he had not met and gotten to know some Christians, he may very well have never known God or come to saving faith in Him.

Other people, naturally, will call that a coincidence. We know better.

Now, I have this imaginary (facetious) scenario of me praying desperately for any other job so I could quit at RS, and God saying, "Will you pipe down already? I'm working on something here! Chill out -- you'll understand it when it happens!" Makes me grin every time.
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Sorry this is so long... I was so happy to answer an actual serious question, that I wanted to give you the best answer I could...

Answer 5

The point of prayer is not to fulfill our selfish desires. It's to align ourselves with God's will. It's to put ourselves in a posture where God can work not for us, but through us. Prayer is how we attain the discernment and strength to persevere as people of God, doing whatever we can to bring God's kingdom, his vision, a little more into this world.

God is not Santa Claus. He is our Alpha and Omega, our beginning and end, our ultimate concern. Prayer is our avenue for appreciating that truth.

Answer 6

I am not Christian, but I do speak to God, and I hear answers in my own head, in my own voice, but I know it to be God answering me.
After all, if I knew the answer, then I wouldn't have to ask Him, now would I.

Answer 7

whe I ask God for somthing, I always put in "as long as it is your will" if it doesn't happen, then God has his reason, which we don't know, but when it does, we trust that it is Him...and thank Him for it!!!

Answer 8

sometimes I get an overwhelming feeling of peace within and I know things will be ok.

Answer 9

I know by the way my Prayer is answered. It is always answered but sometimes it is no.

Answer 10

I usually pray: "Lord please let it come out this way. But I know its Your will, not mine. So whatever you decide, I know it will be best for me."