Do You Pray? How Often?

Discussion in 'Faith & Religion' started by Lon Tanner, Apr 26, 2019.

  1. Lon Tanner

    Lon Tanner Supreme Member
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    I am not given to prayer myself and instead replace it with positive thoughts, statements or comment.
     
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  2. Beth Gallagher

    Beth Gallagher Supreme Member
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    No, I don't. I "hope" for a lot, though. :D
     
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  3. Betty Jones

    Betty Jones Veteran Member
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    yes i pray 2 times a day
     
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  4. Bill Boggs

    Bill Boggs Supreme Member
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    Yes I pray. I pray for my daughter, I pray when I go it is by way of massive heart attack and not drowning in my own fluid or oxygen deprivation. I also hope for the same things.
     
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  5. Shirley Martin

    Shirley Martin Supreme Member
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    That depends on what you call prayer.

    When something good happens like an especially beautiful sunset, rainbow, anything that I really appreciate, I look up and say, "Thank you." Sometimes I add, "You did good." To whom? ......…. The Creator, the Great "I am", God, whatever being who sends the blessing.
     
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  6. Hal Pollner

    Hal Pollner Veteran Member
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    No, I resort to Wishing and Hoping.

    Whether or not you attach "God's" or "The Lord's" name to it doesn't matter.

    Millions of Jews in Hitler's death camps prayed for their lives, but they were killed anyway.

    Hal
     
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  7. Hal Pollner

    Hal Pollner Veteran Member
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    I thank Nature for such blessings!

    Hal 9000
     
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  8. Cody Fousnaugh

    Cody Fousnaugh Supreme Member
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    Wife and I pray prior to each meal at home. She says a pray for us, just before we go to sleep. For us, praying has really helped. In one way or the other, our Lord answers our prayers all the time.
     
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  9. Shirley Martin

    Shirley Martin Supreme Member
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    I'm not sure where the blessings come from. I just appreciate them when they do come. So, to cover all bases, I send thanks out into the universe. It never hurts to say thanks for a job well done.

    I have found that if you tell someone thanks and give them a, "Well done", they will keep doing it. :D
     
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  10. Holly Saunders

    Holly Saunders Supreme Member
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    Yes I Pray!! I pray for those who are suffering ..I pray for my daughter to give her strength to carry out the hard work she does 7 days a week... and to keep her safe and well

    I pray for our dogs when they're sick...

    I pray for help ( unashamedly ) when I'm ill..and in pain...

    I'm not ashamed to Pray, I'm praying to a Higher Being, of whom I'm sure there is one , call it God or what you will... and I pray to all those who've gone before me..my mother, my grandmother,.. anyone who may be listening...

    I don't pray daily but regularly enough...

    I haven't said grace before a meal since I was a child, but that doesn't mean I'm not grateful for the food in front of me...
     
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  11. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    I do have to clarify something when it comes to my own “prayers”.
    In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul said to “pray without ceasing”. That doesn’t mean that I have to be on my knees 24/7 but it does mean to keep the lines of communication open at all times.

    Prayer is communication with God and the majority of times it’s just being ever mindful that He is present and at other times yes, it’s having a good conversation with Him. Whether that conversation is thanking Him for whatever blessings seen or unseen have occurred or something I am troubled with, there is no way I can count the number of times nor the amount of time I spend talking with Him and moreover, listening to what He has to say and / or watching what He can do.
     
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  12. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    So then, you wouldn’t be opposed to God if He decided to MAKE people do what He wanted to do as long as it doesn’t interfere with your own free will.
    His contract with mankind doesn’t include making one person a robot and whilst giving another total free will. We all have the freedom to choose right and wrong, good and bad. When it comes to man’s inhumanity to man or our willingness to be merciful and giving, the Biblical quote of “it rains on the just and the unjust” comes to mind. Many things are simply left up to us concerning how we treat each other.
     
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    Last edited: Apr 29, 2019
  13. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    When it comes to kneeling on the floor and spending a great deal of time in avid prayer, no. I don't do that often and, when I do, it's generally for personal gain. When I was first referred to a specialist for cancer, I did that before the biopsy results were in but they were still positive for cancer. I do pray, in the sense of speaking to God, periodically throughout the day. When I say something that I shouldn't be saying, I might apologize. When someone asks for prayer, I don't simply say that I am praying for them and then not do it, as I suspect a lot of people do, and which I have done at times in the past. No, if I indicate that I will pray for someone, I do. I pray for my wife, and I even pray for my cats. So far, if there were any miracles, they were indistinguishable from chance.

    As a child, I prayed for my mother when she was hospitalized and, as a new Christian at the time, I felt assured in the power of my fervent prayer. Nevertheless, she died a few days later.

    However, I remain convinced that there is power in prayer. Although God isn't generally at our command, doing those things that we ask of Him, I do believe that it is important to maintain communication with God, if only to demonstrate my own obedience to the biblical direction to pray. I also believe that God can and does sometimes grant the prayers of righteous people, which leads me to consider just how righteous I am. I have already admitted that I generally only pray when I want something or when someone asks me to. That being the case, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that He isn't at my beck and call.

    I do believe in prayer, and I believe in miracles, but I also believe that God usually lets nature take its course. However righteous I might be, if I step out in front of a speeding truck, my fate is probably in the hands of the person driving the truck and the medical personnel who may try to save my life afterward. Mostly, it's on me to avoid stepping out in front of speeding trucks.

    As for my cancers, can I really blame that on God? As a child, I can remember playing with liquid mercury that my dad had brought home, unaware of the dangers. We would divide it up into balls and watch how they joined together again, and we'd rub it onto silver dollars to see how it shined them up. For a couple of years, I worked in a fiberglass plant, where we'd wash the fiberglass and resin mixture off our hands several times a day by dipping them in a vat of toluene. Perhaps my cancers are like walking out in front of a speeding truck, and God has simply allowed nature to take its course.

    God could have healed me if He chose to, just as He could have healed my mother. She was a good Christian woman, so there was no reason for Him to want to punish her, but He chose not to answer my prayers in the way that I had hoped.

    Yet, I do believe that there are such things as miracles. As a Christian, I have to believe that the miracles that are recorded in Scripture were true, and I see no compelling reason to believe that miracles have ended with the original apostles, as some will argue, given that the ability to perform miracles came from God and was not of their own power.

    I believe that God has a plan and that, like our GPS, when we do not act according to God's plan, He is not thwarted - He simply recalculates and moves on to the same ultimate destination that He had in mind from before time began. I believe, also, that God has a plan for each one of us but, having created us with free will and fallible minds, we do not always appreciate or fully understand what God would have us do, and we're not always willing to comply. When we fail to do what God has assigned to us, He can either intervene and put us back on course, or He can assign that task to another; rather than thwarting God, we have simply robbed ourselves of the blessing.

    When God has a plan for someone who steps out in front of a truck, He may well elect to save that person through a miracle, allowing that person to fulfill his mission, or He may decide to assign the task to another and allow that person to suffer the natural consequences of stepping out in front of a speeding truck.

    When God fails to heal a loving mother, or allows a Christian to get cancer, or even to die of it, that may seem cruel and uncaring to someone on the outside looking in. Even to the Christian, it may feel that way at the time. When my mother died, I can assure you that I was angry with God for a long time. But while my anger may be understandable, was it reasonable?

    God never forgets what we so often forget, even as Christians, which is that our natural lives here on earth are only a small part of eternity. When my mother died, it seemed to me as if she were gone. Indeed, more than fifty years later, she is still gone from this world. As I have no photos, I sometimes can't even remember what she looked like. But as a Christian, I should realize that her existence did not end in that hospital room and that if cancer should end my life here on earth, my life has not truly ended.

    Yet, it's still natural for us to want to preserve our lives here on earth and to want the same for those who we love. Given that God gave us this instinct, I don't suppose that it is wrong, but it is sometimes hard to remember that our lives here on earth are not all that we have.

    So yes, I pray. I pray for things that seem important to me, yet I realize that they may not be important to God, and unless they advance the greater plan that God has in mind, these things may well not be important to God, except perhaps as He recognizes their importance to me. Perhaps I should pray more often, and I frequently make a point of doing that. If I were more obedient to the things that God would have me say, do, and think, maybe my prayers would be more powerful.
     
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  14. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    Now THAT’S good teaching Ken! I would hope that everyone on this forum plus plus will read it and give it some thought.
     
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  15. Shirley Martin

    Shirley Martin Supreme Member
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    I don't think so, Ken. My BIL was one of the most obedient, faithful, prayerful Christians who ever lived. Still, he died the most agonizing death you can possibly imagine from cancer. Prayer from himself and fellow Christians didn't prevent his suffering that way and dying.
     
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