Comments on: When Should we Quit Praying? Or, How to Pray for Impossible Things. https://anitamathias.com/2012/08/29/when-should-we-quit-praying-or-how-to-pray-for-impossible-things/ Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art Thu, 14 Nov 2013 01:06:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 By: prochaskas https://anitamathias.com/2012/08/29/when-should-we-quit-praying-or-how-to-pray-for-impossible-things/#comment-18331 Fri, 31 Aug 2012 00:45:10 +0000 http://anitamathias.com/blog/2012/08/29/when-should-we-quit-praying-or-how-to-pray-for-impossible-things/#comment-18331 What I find hard is the tension — how to ask for real — with expectation? — AND have real acceptance in case it's no — seems like a cake and eating it conundrum.

I wonder in Gethsemane if Jesus got an answer — or if, after his third iteration of the prayer, he just stood up and moved forward, perhaps uncertain what would happen?

]]> By: Anita Mathias https://anitamathias.com/2012/08/29/when-should-we-quit-praying-or-how-to-pray-for-impossible-things/#comment-18330 Thu, 30 Aug 2012 21:57:04 +0000 http://anitamathias.com/blog/2012/08/29/when-should-we-quit-praying-or-how-to-pray-for-impossible-things/#comment-18330 Thank, LA. Yes, I have been thinking that balance is as important in the spiritual life as in real life. That we cannot focus our spiritual lives on one thing, healing, let's say, or creativity flowing like a river, which is what I desperately wanted at a stage of exhaustion and burnout in my own life.
So I guess the Gethsemane prayer is the way to pray with peace. Loving Father, please may I have this. BUT not as I will, but as you will.

]]> By: LA https://anitamathias.com/2012/08/29/when-should-we-quit-praying-or-how-to-pray-for-impossible-things/#comment-18329 Thu, 30 Aug 2012 12:52:10 +0000 http://anitamathias.com/blog/2012/08/29/when-should-we-quit-praying-or-how-to-pray-for-impossible-things/#comment-18329 This post is near and dear to my heart as I see so many people damaged (indeed, I use that word judiciously) severely by this notion of “if I don't get what I'm praying for, I must not be worthy”. I have seen people leave the church, suffer deep depression and even become suicidal after being pushed by so-called “faith-healers” into thinking that they're not being healed because they don't have enough faith.

Instead of wasting the countless hours, the couple with the paraplegic, could have been hearing God's call to advance His Kingdom through other means. I find their search for healing to be selfish and prideful. Prideful because in insisting upon the healing (rather than the two-pronged prayer as you suggest), they have created a situation where they are TELLING God what his will is, rather than accepting the path he has chosen for them. Why do people always want to play God?

It is funny that as I read the opening of your blog, the whole time, I was thinking of the prayer in the Garden as well. The two-pronged approach of “this is my will, but I will accept your will without question”.

I had a friend whose life goal was profound to me and this post reminded me of it. Her approach to life was that in everything, there is an opportunity for us to learn something about God. We must, at every time and place, be looking for that opportunity and learn that lesson. The two-pronged prayer approach, to me, is the surest way to live out that goal. To see in everything an opportunity to be Christ-like in our acceptance of God's will and to learn what we are meant to learn.

]]> By: Anita Mathias https://anitamathias.com/2012/08/29/when-should-we-quit-praying-or-how-to-pray-for-impossible-things/#comment-18328 Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:41:46 +0000 http://anitamathias.com/blog/2012/08/29/when-should-we-quit-praying-or-how-to-pray-for-impossible-things/#comment-18328 Yes! So perhaps the way to pray for healing–or anything–is the Gethsemane prayer: “Father, if it is possible, please let this happen.” “Father, if it is not possible for this to happen, your will be done.”

You pray in trust, accepting either outcome in trust.

Tough!!

]]> By: prochaskas https://anitamathias.com/2012/08/29/when-should-we-quit-praying-or-how-to-pray-for-impossible-things/#comment-18327 Thu, 30 Aug 2012 01:22:40 +0000 http://anitamathias.com/blog/2012/08/29/when-should-we-quit-praying-or-how-to-pray-for-impossible-things/#comment-18327 Intriguing! And yes, hard to discern hard-headedness from faith sometimes! And equally hard to discern giving up from acceptance!

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