by jimwalton » Sun Jul 26, 2020 3:41 pm
Sure. While, as you say, plenty of prayers go unanswered, plenty of them are answered as well. Our son has a serious congenital heart defect, and we often pray for his medical care and his survival as he goes under various procedures. He has also had a stroke that could've killed him, but many people prayed and he survived. He has lived through many things that in previous years would've killed him. We attribute that to medical technology and also to the power of prayer. But there are many other instances of answered prayer. There are many frustrations when God does not answer prayers that we think are very important, but there are plenty of places when he has answered prayer and we're grateful for it.
> I know most of the time most people pray and nothing happens and give up.
Prayer is not mainly for us to get stuff from God. He's not Santa Claus or the gift fairy. Prayer is mainly the way we talk to God and tell him about our day and hash things out with him. If prayer for a person is just about getting an answer and getting what we want, someone has seriously misunderstood prayer and what a relationship with God is.