Interesting essay on prayer

[billwald]

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy...favorites-a-religious-person-rethinks-prayer/

80% of the prayer requests I hear are about not being satisfied with the hand God has dealt and wanting a special deal from God.

 

[Amy.G]

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy...favorites-a-religious-person-rethinks-prayer/

80% of the prayer requests I hear are about not being satisfied with the hand God has dealt and wanting a special deal from God.

Maybe you should start hanging out with some REAL Christians.

 

[SBCPreacher]

That article sounds like it was written by some lost guy trying to discredit the Bible and the God of the Bible.

Bill, surely you don't believe this stuff, do you?

 

[SBCPreacher]

From the article... "Now here is the kicker. I still love God and pray frequently. God is the creative power of existence. Prayer is a radical act of centering and a powerful spiritual practice that helps unite me to the divine."

This is nothing more than New Age foolishness. I wonder who he's praying to - it's not the God of the Bible.

 

[rbell]

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy...favorites-a-religious-person-rethinks-prayer/

80% of the prayer requests I hear are about not being satisfied with the hand God has dealt and wanting a special deal from God.

I bet Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane really bothers you, eh Bill?

Muslims often say, "Allah wills it." Is that your view?

One extreme: We don't ask, because of our deterministic view.
The other: We try to make God our personal bellhop.

 

[billwald]

Since you asked:

>I bet Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane really bothers you, eh Bill?

No. It demonstrates his humanity. Jesus was as afraid as any of us would have been. It gives a little support to the heresy that teaches that "The Christ" came upon Jesus at his baptism and left Jesus before his arrest.

>Muslims often say, "Allah wills it." Is that your view?

Someplace (in Isaiah?) God says, "I bring good and I bring evil." God takes ultimate responsibility even if he is working through Satan.

I think prayer does more to change the praying person than to change human events. I have no personal complaints about God. Every personal problem I have had was due to my personal stupidity and bad choices. I thank God for bailing me out when I screw up. I especially thank my Guardian Angel for protection on the freeway.

But you tell me . . . what is the substance of the congregational prayer requests you hear? Thanks for the lessons learned during a heart attack? Thanks for failed crops or requests for different weather conditions?

The goofiest form of prayer request is, "person had medical tests done last week. We pray that she will have good results next week." In other words, if the conditions tested for were bad, please change history, heal the body and change the MRI pictures."