Thanks and Some Thoughts on Prayer

Thanks and Some Thoughts on Prayer

First I want to thank everyone for their supportive comments on the previous post. It was a rather upsetting conversation for me... mostly because of where I am now rather than her actual words. But like I said before, my level of frustration is rather low and it doesn't take very much to push me over the edge these days.

Like many of the people who responded, I've also spent some time in churches that held the same belief system as Andrea. But, I never could buy into the "pray harder and have more faith and God will grant it" mentality. I guess part of the reason is that I did spend so much of my youth praying that my brother could hear. And no one can tell me that I didn't have enough faith. I used to dream that he would get his hearing back. I used to pray so hard and believe so strongly that he would be able to hear that I would see little signs... like he'd turn his head just as a truck passed the house... and I'd convince myself that he heard the truck and it was just a matter of time before he could hear everything. But alas, it never happened so when those folks tried to tell me it was my fault I had a hard time believing them.

But what really kept me from buying into their theology was the concept of "least common denominator." In other words, if you had a group of people praying for the same thing and only one person didn't have enough faith; then that prayer would go unanswered. At least that seems like the logical conclusion for the "have enough faith" argument.

Let's think about it for a second... Let say that we have two people praying for the same thing. Let's say that the first person (Mary) has enough faith and if she prayed alone then God would grant the prayer request. But the second person (Susan) doesn't have enough faith. If she were praying alone, God would not grant the request.

So, faced with this dilemma, what's God to do? Well, *IF* you believe what these folks are saying; it would seem to me that God wouldn't answer the prayer. If He did; that would mislead Susan into believing that she did have enough faith. Then she wouldn't work harder to improve her faith. Right? So even though Mary has enough faith -- she has to go without because she asked Susan to pray with her.

That just seems contrary to how *I* would see God and yet, it does seem like the logical extension of Andrea's argument... doesn't it?

Then if you expand this analogy, if you ask everyone in your church or on your prayer chain or in your Bible study to pray for you... what is the likelihood that at least one person won't have the right amount of faith?

On the flip side, if you really believed this way, wouldn't it make you afraid to pray for your friends. I mean, what if you had the slightest doubt that your faith wasn't strong enough? Wouldn't it be the right thing to do as a friend to abstain from praying for your friends and your brothers and sisters in Christ so that God would answer their prayers? It seems like this belief system -- if you really bought into it and really thought about the implacations would actually STOP people from asking others to pray for them as well as STOP people from praying even if they knew a need.

Heck, if my friend isn't going to get their pray answered, I don't want to be at fault for it. If they're the only one praying then they at least have a fighting chance for getting their prayer answered. And, if they don't... at least it won't be my fault.

When I was in a group that thought the same as Andrea I asked them these questions. Either they were completely clueless and had no idea what I was getting at... or, if they did follow my argument, they said I was the one that didn't understand. They said *I* was perverting the Bible. I thought their answer was rather interesting... after all, were not they the ones that were reading verses out of context?

Funny isn't it. Oh well... at least she's gone for three weeks and I don't have to worry about it.