What is the purpose of prayer and god's plan?

Question

So simply asking God to help you should entitle you to some miracle?

Why not spend that time trying to fix the problem yourself?

If you pray to God or whoever to keep your family safe and the next day one of your family members is injured what do you do? Spout off that what happened is part of your deity's plan?

Answer 1

I think the idea that believing in God and prayer will bring you a miracle or some measure of good tidings is wrong.

Look at all the people throughout known history who've suffered horrible deaths. Whether being stalked and slain by serial killers, horrifically died as casualties of war, or victims of natural disaster flung up into the sky by a tornado then dropped to the ground, these are all horrendous ways to go.

Now consider that a good many of these people most likely believed fervently in an afterlife, in God, and in their final moments most likely prayed for help, forgiveness, making their last effort at penance before succumbing to their doom.

I find it hard to rationalize that simply abandoning our (arguably) "God-given" abiliities to reason and use logic to faith in the face of death is the path to some salvation. Certainly none of us alive knows what epiphany may have struck these people in their final moments of life, what salvation may have been granted them. We can only see the aftermath in the form of shattered bones, broken bodies, and perhaps dried tears. Arguably the "soul" has moved on to the afterlife and is well taken care of.

Do we know for sure? I don't. However, I also don't want to shelter myself from other possibilities, including the gloomy one that prayer will do no good. I know I'm going to die and all my loved ones will die, so I will strive to enjoy the time we have and spend it not on prayer but on things with them in this real world which we enjoy.

EDIT: To those of you who believe in the concept of a "relationship" with God, my understanding of a relationship is that it is a two-way street. You communicate with the other, and the other communicates back to you in a way you can understand.

I can see how people can argue that something they witness or perceive in their minds is a "communication" from their deity, but I would ask them to consider the possibility that this really, truly can be mere coincidence.

For example, a neighbor lets their dog loose and it habitually poops on your lawn. You pray to God to do something about this neighbor and help guide them to not let their dog do this (you probably wouldn't ask God to smite the neighbor, hopefully, though if you want I guess you could...).

You happen to rise the next morning and look out your window, and at that very instance you notice that the neighbor's dog is pooping not on your lawn, but on your neighbor's lawn.

Did God guide you to look out the window at that very moment? Maybe, maybe not. Did God guide the dog to poop not upon your lawn? Maybe, maybe not! It's entirely possible the dog decided of its own accord, for whatever reason in its dog mind, to poop on its owner's property instead of yours, and that you happened to pop out just at the right time to see it happen.

Trivial example, sure, but the idea isn't. It seems unwise to rely on personal interpretation of events around you as responses to prayer. If you interpreted some event to mean that God wishes you to strike down your neighbor in anger, would you go ahead and do it? Would that seem righteous? Some people might think so, some people have done so. But fundamentally this seems wrong in many ways which would contradict the Scripture, for example, let alone a general sense of morality.

Answer 2

The purpose of prayer is to allow communication between a believer and God. It is not to order up a miracle...although sometimes my prayers have resulted in things happening that I don't see as likely to have happened in the earthly realm. We all want our families to be safe and we all realize that God does not always answer that prayer in the way we would have preferred. When it happens, yes we ask why...but we also know we need to trust in His judgement and know that He will always work things to our benefit even when events occur that are not understandable to us at the time. Does God injure our family members...or take their life? No.

Sometimes the actions of other people (who God does not control) will injure or kill. Unless that death goes against his overall plan for mankind, he will not intervene.....nor should He. If He constantly controlled what others do, man would no longer have the free will he has given us.

I am not saying that the death of a loved one is part of God's plan. Death is a natural part of life....and for those of us who believe...it is not filled with fear or horrors and we know without question that if the person was a believer (as is my family), we will someday see them again.

Answer 3

If you don't believe in a deity there is no purpose in prayer and it makes little sense to wonder if there's a plan. Everything is random or caused by an incredibly long Rube Goldbergian chain of events. There is no purpose, and there's little point in worrying about randomness and chaos and disorder. Just enjoy what little time you have left and stop thinking about these things. Think about how you'll solve your problems on your own and deal with whatever comes up as it happens.

On the other hand, it does seem to me that concepts like "justice" and "fairness" and "right" and "wrong" don't arise out of nature. After all, man is the only creature we know of with these kinds of values.

Where did they come from? Genes? Why did our human genes win the evolutional crap shoot to saddle only us with these terribly complicated values? Really, life would be much easier if we didn't have to worry about things like fairness. In a survival-of-the-fittest world, there really isn't time to worry about who's been wronged. If somebody was wronged, they're a victim. They're weak. Move on. Survive.

Yet here it is: If you suspect that praying to a deity should result in an automatic pass from some random evil, and yet that evil comes to fruition, you feel wronged. You are now judging your deity with a value system that really could not have developed from evolutionary processes where only the strong and fit prevail. And, irony of ironies, you are now tempted to reject the existence of that deity on the basis of fairness and justice and love and benevolence.

How interesting that you would reject your creator on the basis of values only he could have instilled in you.

Now, if God exists and if he has a plan, it's likely his plan really would boggle your mind. This is not an insult. And it's not a dismissal of your question. Think: if God exists and he created the universe, and he created the world, and he created every molecule, atom, and proton in your body, it's a pretty fair bet that his mental capacity is at least a few points higher than yours.

In short, you wouldn't understand his plan.

In fact, you and I wouldn't even be able to discern a plan -- much like a three year old wouldn't be able to discern a strategy behind a chess game played by masters.

The point of prayer is, ultimately, not to get from your deity what you want. It's to become who you should be in relationship with your creator.

It's like asking, what's the point of talking to your significant other? To get to know her.

The more you know, the better you are able to love. And the better you are able to love, the better you are able to listen. And if you are fortunate and committed to spending time talking with your deity you might actually start thinking the way your deity wants you to think.

What happens then? Your prayers change. And instead of asking for random divine protection from unknown and unforseeable evils, you start asking for grace to endure and strength to prevail.

Because, really, it rain on both the just and the unjust. Nobody gets a pass from pain.

Not even God.

Regards,

Rich.

Answer 4

Prayer isn't to help God-God knows everything. Prayer helps the individual who is praying and seeking enlightenment from God. But you should try to solve the problem yourself, as well as pray for it.

These bad things that happen aren't because of God; He gave us free will, and we are allowed to make our own choices. Usually, though, something good always comes out of something bad, and we learn through the experience.

I almost died when I was little because of heart problems and most of my family members want to work in the hospital or help the less fortunate.

Answer 5

God is a proxy object created by man to fulfill and personify the lofty goals and self-serving agendas of power hungry individuals who need a proxy authority object for the specific purpose of controlling the thoughts/actions and instilling a mythological fear in low information individuals who clearly lack critical thinking skills. Religion is clearly a control mechanism designed to keep people distracted with fantasy constructs while robber barons steal their money and any hope for a prosperous future. Anyone who believes they're, (subjective warning) "successful" because of and not in spite of their religious tribe affiliations/membership are dismissing the tribal affect where tribal membership has the advantage of making as many people prosperous not for the sake of being prosperous, but for the sole purpose of attracting more people into subjugating their personal desires in order to join a "successful", (religious) tribe. There is a really no practical purpose to split hairs over what a proxy object created by early control freak men is or isn't. A fantasy object can be anything selected by the mental construct designated by the individual and as a fantasy based object/character, a deity can have as many human-like characteristics like rage, jealousy, indifference, anger or plain cruelty OR it can have as many contradictory non-human capabilities as imagined by each dedicated penitent. This question can easily lead to an endless loop of self-serving impossible and clearly contradictory capabilities that no evidence exists for their presence except in the imaginations of die-hard penitents.

Answer 6

We have this thing called "human freedom." We have the freedom to choose what we want to do. God gave us this ability. Unfortunately, because we use this ability to choose things that do not glorify God, we live in a world unlike the one God originally created.

However, God works within the confines of this fallen world. One way He works is through prayer. Prayer is a way that God establishes a relationship with us. As we pray, we come to understand God more - His mercies and His grace.

God also "partners" with us through prayer. While praying, Christians are often convicted to "do." After all, prayer, as with faith, is useless without works (James). Prayer moves his people (see the downfall of the Soviet bloc in several of the Eastern European nations).

But its certainly not magic. We live in a fallen world - and because of that, evil happens. But we still question God - why does this have to happen? Why do innocent people suffer? And although we know the answer (sin is in the world), we come to God in prayer asking for His grace and for intervention.

But in this world, God generally partners with His people to intervene. So, with the power of prayer, God pushes us to do His work.

Prayer and lack of getting what we want is not so simple as you might think.

Answer 7

Well, if you don't ask God for wisdom, then you are probably never going to figure out how to solve the problem yourself, so you are wasting your time if you do NOT pray.

And you seem to have a very limited notion of what prayer is for. I could explain it to you, but I don't think that you are seriously interested.

You can try reading this (if you really want to know):

Answer 8

my nephew died last yr. it's not God's fault that he died. it's because his mother chose not to watch him. but because he believe in God and accepted him..i know that he has eternal life with God and one day i will see him again. it's not God's fault that the world is they it is. it's man's fault. i pray for my saftey as well and family and friends. God forbib something happens to them...but that's what you call life. sometimes you need help. you cant do anything and everything on your own. God supplies me with all that i need. and if something does happen, i dont curse him.

Answer 9

Well it is very simple.
Trial and error.
When I try to fix a problem myself:
Worry
Anger
Frantic search
"Repeat"

When I ask God to take over the problem and work it out and truly give it to him without trying to take it back...
Rest
Wait
Fixed!

Answer 10

The first thing you need to pray is that God will reveal Himself to you. It's not just enough to pray to him, you need to have a personal relationship with Him. The only door to heaven is to accept Jesus as your Saviour and He will lead you into all truth. : )