barry, before I pray for anything, I pray to know God's will.
now if my little girl died, i don't thank God for killing her.
If I'm sick..I my pray to be healed, but I would also ask if I'm doing something unhealthy to cause the sickness.
Please go read the thorn in the flesh again.
didn't it say it was a messenger from satan<gg> it didn't say it came from God<gg>
I certainly didn't say question faith if trails happen..I never said that in my post. I don't associate trials and tests with lack of faith.
trials and test and temptations are there and actually build up our endurance.
My post was to the part about being perfect. greg's post said that if Pual had pride,he wouldn't be a christian very long.
Well, Pual did have pride and he remained a christian and ask for God's help and God helped him with that sin over the years til he wasn't prideful anymore. He eventually apologize to Mark and asked to have Mark along instead of banishing him on trips.
The balance is the paragraph about pride and christians and sin and christains.
I don't think that sin unsaves you. It's bad and not God's will.
but God will bless you regardless and He doesn't disown you when you sin.
Here is what my post was trying to balance
"Well, if Paul had been a Prideful Christian, like many of us are, and if Paul had imagined that God had
granted him a magic exemption from trouble, then he might have thought those thoughts. He did get
autobiographical at times, so he probably would have shared them with us. However, if Paul had been a
Prideful Christian, he wouldn't have been a Christian long: look at all the misfortune that he suffered! He
even gives us a catalog in 2 Corinthians 11! He was beaten, whipped, stoned and left for dead,
shipwrecked, and had a recurring illness. He was rejected, persecuted, reviled, and subverted. If anyone
has had more suffering and misfortune in their life than Paul had, I can't imagine who it would be."
Trails and test are actually to our favor since they build up our faith.
But, God doesn't want you to sit there in the trial. and , even though you aren't perfect He still will help mightily. I think you just assumed that if i was going through something i would pray.."God take it away".
When that would not be the first thing in my prayer...
Issues of what is really happening and why is this here and asking for wisdom on how to pray are what I think first.
great examples are:
if my house isn't selling..I wouldn't pray for God to sell my house. He may want me to stay right where I am and i need to find this out.
I project isn't finishing, well, maybe somethings wrong and I need to find out from Him what is wrong rather than just complete it poorly and then find out afterwards.
I could be sick and pray all day to get well.. what good is that if it's really a diet or exercise reason that I'm sick.
wisdom on how and what to pray is a whole lot more important than just asking God to take away the pain.
But, at anyrate, I don't think I earn answers. i'm not perfect and Paul wasn't perfect(in fact for yrs. Paul was very prideful) and yet miracles still happened. I pray hard when things are going great.
So, I'm certainly going to pray hard when disaster strikes.
I live my life pretty close to the bleeding edge of commitment.
I expect attacks and I get attacks frequently.
In fact, if I didn't get atttacked then i would probably ask God if I
was out of His will and just playing it too safe.<gg>
I ask God for miracles all the time and I get them...
maybe it's because i don't use miracles on myself<gg> |
