:)


I completely agree. I've said this before and was met with odd stares by some fellow church members. :rolleyes: Go figure.

*bump*

Bumping this for a question that frequently bothers me:

Prayer - the type where you pray FOR someone/something. Does it work? If so do people who have people to pray for them deserve better outcomes? If not then why do it?

I always got caught in a recursive "can't just pray for one person why not everyone in the whole world well what's the point then" thought process.

/overthinks things, I know

This was my facebook status a few days ago:

"God is always much better than the most loving person you can imagine, Jesus is saying. It is not that we pray and God answers. It is that our praying is already God answering within us and through us." — from Wondrous Encounters

So, in answer to your question DF - I don't think prayer triggers some "Jackpot!" with God. I think prayer opens us up to what God is already doing.

And I do think you can pray for everyone - I know my parish does, along with those we know. Heck, we even make a point of "praying for those who have no one to pray for them". Covering all the bases, I guess!

It also depends on the type of prayer - meditative, gratitude, intercession . . .

Yes I agree with what SWTX has to say. By praying for others, it is a very real way to express our love for them, even if not something that is always visible or always produces a tangible result.

I've never been comfortable with prayer that asks for something specific. My prayers tend to be for assistance in accepting God's will or simply putting a problem in His hands. For example, I was struggling with finding funds for my kids' Christmas presents and I was really stressing over it. One night, I thought to myself "I am just putting this in God's hands". The next day, we got a surprise bonus at work and my dad sent me my own Christmas gift, an A_mazon gift certificate. Between the two, I was able to get each of my kids the gift they really wanted. It's like my own personal worry jar. When I let go and stop worrying, things work out as they should. Would I have received those two things if I hadn't put it in God's hands? Yes. But I would have kept worrying until the next day.

Yeah I specified "asking" rather than intercession but that's really what I'm looking at here. But if intercessory prayer doesn't really have an effect then again, why bother? And if it does, how DO we conscience only praying for specific people at any given time?

If I see it as "I took some thought for you today" I see the point, but if the only benefit is the person appreciating the thought then why prayer? Isn't it just a self fulfilling prophecy then?

This part of prayer doesn't confuse me so much, although I see it more as self-talk ultimately at this moment. It's more the intercession, the 'please help _____' that I'm struggling with.

My own take - praying for others is as much for YOU as for the others. It is a way of directing your energy towards others, and focusing less on yourself. It's a way of opening up to what God's will is - of course the ultimate prayer is to be accepting of that. But from a Christian perspective, we are told specifically when 2 or 3 are gathered in His name - and I think the point is that we are to be a community. That community in and of itself is able to act - and thus prayers are fulfilled. The support of the community is a good - and it expresses itself through prayer.

*nod* I acknowledge that prayer can be beneficial to the pray-er, I just.. obviously not every community prayer is fulfilled, even if they do everything they can for themselves so it seems like why bother to make those community connections through prayer and not through some other format.

That's where the whole "God's will" thing comes in - and of course you don't stop at prayer. (Faith without works is, after all, dead.)
I think it may relate to intentionality - just voicing your concerns and asking for the strength to bear your burdens and the ability to overcome helps. In that way it's a sort of positive affirmation.
Too often prayer becomes a case of telling God how He should do things, instead of trying to discern His will.

This is what I was going for in my post. I didn't say it nearly as eloquently though.

And I do understand the 'point' of prayer in that sense, just not in the intercessionary sense, I think.

I wish I understood what these terms meant: Episcopalian , Evangelical, Methodist, Baptist, etc. (Time to break out the Wikipedia, I guess). Whenever I see the name of the church on the church signage, I don't really know what these words actually mean. I do, however, (feel that I) know what Catholic and Anglican mean.

PS In writing this "stream of consciousness", I came upon this helpful diagram (you will need to scroll down a ways...)
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_d...nity_are_there

LOL @ one of my all-time favorite topics:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/stuffchris...rsecution.html

Christians are persecuted? Yeah, right. At least not in the United States.