Topic: Prayers do get answered

[Spartan563]

God does answer prayers.  We may be in a hurry to have them answered, but His timing is better than ours.  My wife and have been blessed to have had two prayers answered back to back, last week.  And the timing was just right.  Glory to God!

[SolEX01]

Lord have Mercy.

[vamrat]

SolEX, it looks like he already has!

It's always nice to see a prayer of thanksgiving for prayers already answered.  Glory to God!  Care to share what wonders the Lord hath wrought?

[mike]

Glory to God!

[stashko]

Prayers.........


Lord Have Mercy........Amen Amen

[quietmorning]

Thanks be to God! 

[stashko]

In Faith We Ask , And In Faith We Recieve....

Thank's  Be to God In All Things.....Amen Amen

[Spartan563]

I'd rather keep my prayers to myself.      But I will share with you that we did keep our promise to God, and made a special monetary donation to our parish this week.

S563

[SolEX01]

SolEX, it looks like he already has!

It's always nice to see a prayer of thanksgiving for prayers already answered.  Glory to God!  Care to share what wonders the Lord hath wrought?

Whoops....   

Glory to God!

[HabteSelassie]

Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious Name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Amen amen! Congratulations on the true successes of God!

I do have two cents to add to this thread, not necessarily to the OP but in relation to the topic of prayer.

We in Christianity sometimes need to take a more realistic approach to prayer, and even follow the example of Zen Buddhist prayers.  Christian prayer should not just be a wish list, or series of ever venting gripe and frustrations.  We must prayer not necessarily to get God to do what we think we want or need, but rather simply to communicate, meditate, and experience God.  Prayer should be less demanding, more consoling.  Its not that we shouldn't pray for our needs and wants, but we should be ever mindful of humility in our prayers, and essentially and earnestly pray in all things that "Father, Thy Will be Done."

As a society, many Christians simply do not understand prayer.  Orthodox prayer in particular is designed to overcome this deficit of understanding, by having structured, written, and ritualized prayers.  These kinds of prayers keep us reminded of the Will of God, and not of ourselves, and instead of offering means to an end, instead afford us valuable opportunities for some quality "me time" with our Creator.  We should then pray zealously not for our own needs and wants to be achieved, but rather that in all aspects of our lives, we have direct, lasting, and impacting contact with God Almighty.  After all, isn't it much better to simply be in the Ever-Presence of God then to get our earthly or humanly needs accomplished?  God is successful enough for both I dare say, however, surely one is more meaningful in the scheme of our lives than the other?

In my own prayers I am constantly shifting away from requests and wants and needs (and this is not simply because I do not have any, no, my life is as challenging as anyone elses' ) to simply praying for God's Presence and to feel His nearness to me..

stay blessed,
habte selassie

[Spartan563]

Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious Name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Amen amen! Congratulations on the true successes of God!

I do have two cents to add to this thread, not necessarily to the OP but in relation to the topic of prayer.

We in Christianity sometimes need to take a more realistic approach to prayer, and even follow the example of Zen Buddhist prayers.  Christian prayer should not just be a wish list, or series of ever venting gripe and frustrations.  We must prayer not necessarily to get God to do what we think we want or need, but rather simply to communicate, meditate, and experience God.  Prayer should be less demanding, more consoling.  Its not that we shouldn't pray for our needs and wants, but we should be ever mindful of humility in our prayers, and essentially and earnestly pray in all things that "Father, Thy Will be Done."

As a society, many Christians simply do not understand prayer.  Orthodox prayer in particular is designed to overcome this deficit of understanding, by having structured, written, and ritualized prayers.  These kinds of prayers keep us reminded of the Will of God, and not of ourselves, and instead of offering means to an end, instead afford us valuable opportunities for some quality "me time" with our Creator.  We should then pray zealously not for our own needs and wants to be achieved, but rather that in all aspects of our lives, we have direct, lasting, and impacting contact with God Almighty.  After all, isn't it much better to simply be in the Ever-Presence of God then to get our earthly or humanly needs accomplished?  God is successful enough for both I dare say, however, surely one is more meaningful in the scheme of our lives than the other?

In my own prayers I am constantly shifting away from requests and wants and needs (and this is not simply because I do not have any, no, my life is as challenging as anyone elses' ) to simply praying for God's Presence and to feel His nearness to me..

stay blessed,
habte selassie

Greetings Habte,

The reason I did not disclose the details of our prayer is because we feel it was between ourselves and God.  It seems that your post, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that our prayer was  to get something from God in exchange for a donation to our parish.  It wasn't.  If I read too much into it, I beg your forgiveness.  Our prayer was and remains private between the three of us, myself, my wife and God.  But I will say that it was not for anything materialistic. 

We have, with God's help, overcome many adversaries throughout our forty years together.  We don't expect anything materialistic in return for our prayers.  All we want is God's Grace.  But we feel we want to do something a little extra, either for our parish, another person in need, a community organization that helps others in need or where ever God directs us to. 

We did discuss it with our parish priest after being blessed with an answered prayer, and he said to do what we felt in our hearts.  And so we did.  It was done without fanfare, announcements in the bulletin and we asked that it remain a private matter, inasmuch as it could be.

Yes we all have grumbled when we go through trials and tribulations, but we know in our hearts that God knows what's best for us and we know that he will never abandon us.  We have learned many lessons from Him and look forward to many more to help us grow spiritually.  Our faith is ever strong and unwavering. 

S563

[stashko]

Also, I Might Add ,Holy Scripture Tells Us ,My Children Recieve Not ,Because They Ask Not..... God does Want To be Involved with our Everyday lives and Needs,Because he Loves Us So Much......Thats How I Interpret the Passage....

[HabteSelassie]

Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious Name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Greetings Habte,

The reason I did not disclose the details of our prayer is because we feel it was between ourselves and God.  It seems that your post, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that our prayer was  to get something from God in exchange for a donation to our parish.  It wasn't.  If I read too much into it, I beg your forgiveness.  Our prayer was and remains private between the three of us, myself, my wife and God.  But I will say that it was not for anything materialistic.  

We have, with God's help, overcome many adversaries throughout our forty years together.  We don't expect anything materialistic in return for our prayers.  All we want is God's Grace.  But we feel we want to do something a little extra, either for our parish, another person in need, a community organization that helps others in need or where ever God directs us to.  

We did discuss it with our parish priest after being blessed with an answered prayer, and he said to do what we felt in our hearts.  And so we did.  It was done without fanfare, announcements in the bulletin and we asked that it remain a private matter, inasmuch as it could be.

Yes we all have grumbled when we go through trials and tribulations, but we know in our hearts that God knows what's best for us and we know that he will never abandon us.  We have learned many lessons from Him and look forward to many more to help us grow spiritually.  Our faith is ever strong and unwavering.  

S563

Please forgive me, I was not aiming those comments at you personally or criticizing the nature of your own personal prayers at all.  Prayer is our personal relationship and dialogue with God, it is not public business.  My comments were more so to bring up a discussion of prayer in general, for folks to remember not just to pray in times of need (and not only materialistic, but even spiritual or emotional) but also for meditation, to experience God. This is why the Psalms are a good prayer book, I use the Agpeya myself, these structured prayers are like a song which translates your emotions, be they of need or of celebration of thanksgiving, into a commune with God.  God's consolation and Spirit can come to us in prayer not just in direct answers through events or revelations in our lives (though to be sure, He does these also   ) but just to simply experience His Presence.  To feel and know God is comforting through all circumstances, it strengthens, inspires, invigorates, encourages, enlightens, and gives us our very life.

My point was that prayer is not just a conversation or a request, it is a spiritual communion where we can meditate and experience God. Sometimes in the busy chatter of our lives, we forget to stop for a moment and enjoy God in the silence of the Spirit.

sorry for the confusion

stay blessed,
habte selassie

[Fire-Bird2014]

I promised myself that I would share our story, if our prayer gets answered. It did.

My husband and I are newly chrismated Orthodox Christians. Right after our chrismation ceremony my husband lost his job. We lost our only source of income. However, he did not panic. We figured that he had to loose a job that was driving him nuts for more than 10 years! We truly believe that people who get baptized or chrismated face immediate losses of things (and beings) that upset their spiritual growth. No wonder it happened to him. Too much stress, too many nightmares...

Typically we pray for enlightenment vs. resolution of life problems. Not exactly sure why.  If God is our Father, it must be ok to talk to him about everything that matters to us, don't you think? Anyway, three months have passed and no recruiters were able to help us. My husband donated a lot of money to our Orthodox Church, we did not miss a single Sunday service, watched what we eat, say and think... Sure enough it is impossible not to sin, but being newly chrismated and excited about faith we honestly tried.

After three months of job search, I looked up St. Xenia from St. Petersburg who is known to respond to prayers dealing with life problems (unemployment, loneliness, etc.) We printed out her icon, a prayer in English and together we stood up and prayed in front of St Xenia's icon. The next morning (!) my husband got a phone call from a new recruiter with a real job in mind. This job sounded too good to be true (location, salary, hours, environment) This is why we kept praying to St Xenia After a number of hard interviews, my husband got a job offer we could only dream about. He was supposed to start his work on Monday but somehow it was changed for Thursday ( a day of his Saint!!!) Was it a second coincidence?  We think it was a sign that we are taken care of! We will be, too, as long as we keep praying and trying hard to change ourselves to be better Christians.

St. Xenia had intervened on our behalf and now we hope that many more stories will be shared here by others!

Having renounced the vanity of the earthly world, thou didst take up the cross of a homeless life of wandering; thou didst not fear grief, privation, nor the mockery of men, and didst know the love of Christ. Now taking sweet delight of this love in heaven, O Xenia, the blessed and divinely wise, pray for the salvation of our souls.

Святая Ксения, моли Бога о нас грешных! Слава Отцу и Сыну и Святому Духу. Аминь.

http://www.saintgregoryoutreach.org/2010/01/prayers-for-employment-family-and.html
http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/01/saint-xenia-fool-for-christ.html

[Maria]

Praise the Lord!

[marigold]

Glory to God!

[WPM]

Glory to God

[biro]

Glory to God!

[Maximum Bob]

Great to hear. Glory to our God.