Posted: Apr 24, 2010 4:51 am
blasphemer_number1 wrote:A close friend of mine is divorced; he was telling me of his ex-wife who is from a religious home. His ex-wife lost her leg to leukemia when she was perhaps 10 years old. Her family assured her that, as nothing is beyond god's power, if she prayed hard enough god would surely restore her amputated limb. Many years later as an adult in her late 30's, she remains an amputee and her family has come to the conclusion that either her faith was lacking or she just didn't pray hard enough.
Just playing devil’s advocate here…
I was a fundie for 20 years (Pentecostal, born again blah, blah, blah) and this was the reason for believing god could do that for you.
Matthew 21:22 (King James Version)
And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
As expected, rarely did get what you asked for and the reason might be:
1 – You didn’t have enough faith. (as mentioned above)
Note from the scripture above, Jesus said ‘believing’, that means 100%, total and unconditional belief.
2 – You didn’t pray hard enough, long enough or sincerely enough. (as above)
3 - You may have asked for things that would go against the purpose that god has planned for your life.
4 – You may have asked for things that could cause you (or others) harm or grief and god is protecting you from yourself.
5 – God will eventually answer your prayer, but you must show patience and be willing to wait. You can’t ‘force’ god into action.
The reason for number 5 is this:
Luke 4:12
And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
It was a win-win for god. Regardless of the outcome, he’d come out a champion in our books.
More so when someone asked for something and actually got it! (Not from god, but shit happens and if you ask for enough, eventually, going by the numbers, you’ll hit pay dirt.) When someone would come to the congregation and tell us that god had answered their prayer, we were overjoyed at the news and didn’t doubt the veracity of their words even for a second. It was proof positive (not that we needed it) that god was working within our midst.