Do christians rely too heavily on prayer part 3

Sep 8, 2012
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A man could not figure out how to change the ring tone on his cell phone. He prayed everyday without ceasing for 5 years that God would show him how to change it. He asked his church prayer group to pray for him. He asked christian internet communities to pray for him. Nothing worked. He still could not change the ring tone on his phone.

One day a meme randomly appeared on his social media timeline:

rtfm.jpg


He dug out the manual for his cellphone and looked up the section about changing ring tones.

5 minutes later he had succeeded in getting the ring tone he wanted.

5 years of praying without ceasing with zero results. Or 5 minutes of reading the instruction manual with the desired result. Which is the life God intended for christians to live?
 

Mark Quayle

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A man could not figure out how to change the ring tone on his cell phone. He prayed everyday without ceasing for 5 years that God would show him how to change it. He asked his church prayer group to pray for him. He asked christian internet communities to pray for him. Nothing worked. He still could not change the ring tone on his phone.

One day a meme randomly appeared on his social media timeline:

rtfm.jpg


He dug out the manual for his cellphone and looked up the section about changing ring tones.

5 minutes later he had succeeded in getting the ring tone he wanted.

5 years of praying without ceasing with zero results. Or 5 minutes of reading the instruction manual with the desired result. Which is the life God intended for christians to live?
Made up story? Hypothetical story? I wanna meet this guy, do the Larry, Curly and Moe bit on him.

My mom never told me if she prayed without ceasing to remember how to get her email "from the World Wide Web". I'm guessing she forgot to pray about it except when it was on her mind. But I'm pretty sure she prayed without ceasing about whatever was on her mind, and enjoyed it, too.
 
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royal priest

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A man could not figure out how to change the ring tone on his cell phone. He prayed everyday without ceasing for 5 years that God would show him how to change it. He asked his church prayer group to pray for him. He asked christian internet communities to pray for him. Nothing worked. He still could not change the ring tone on his phone.

One day a meme randomly appeared on his social media timeline:

rtfm.jpg


He dug out the manual for his cellphone and looked up the section about changing ring tones.

5 minutes later he had succeeded in getting the ring tone he wanted.

5 years of praying without ceasing with zero results. Or 5 minutes of reading the instruction manual with the desired result. Which is the life God intended for christians to live?
The issue here is not that this man prayed too much, but rather that he failed to recognize God's answer.
It reminds me of the joke about the guy stranded on his roof surrounded by a flood. He prayed for God to save him and when a boat came by he passed up the offer to get in because he was waiting for God to do something. So, after he finally drowned and gets to Heaven he asks God why he didn't save him. God replied, 'I sent a boat, what more did you expect?'
 
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Jeshu

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A man could not figure out how to change the ring tone on his cell phone. He prayed everyday without ceasing for 5 years that God would show him how to change it. He asked his church prayer group to pray for him. He asked christian internet communities to pray for him. Nothing worked. He still could not change the ring tone on his phone.

One day a meme randomly appeared on his social media timeline:

rtfm.jpg


He dug out the manual for his cellphone and looked up the section about changing ring tones.

5 minutes later he had succeeded in getting the ring tone he wanted.

5 years of praying without ceasing with zero results. Or 5 minutes of reading the instruction manual with the desired result. Which is the life God intended for christians to live?

Praying these type of prayers are meaningless an insult to the intellect of the believer and to the powerful working of God in Spirit when we pray in the Spirit of Jesus to Him.

No pray without ceasing! That is what the word says. Nowhere does it say in the word that we should pray less than that, or that we should pray for our fleshly gadgets.

Sure The Word does say pray and work, but praying unceasingly means we also pray when we work. It is only in communication with God's loving truth, Jesus Christ, that our prayers amount to anything.

So pray! Don't tell people not to pray! Don't tell people prayer is ineffective with silly examples.

i prayed to God He save me from my sins, it took a mighty long time of praying but He did save me from my sins, after i learned to love Him more than sin, and not before.

i learned to Love God after i was afflicted by my sins and paid the price for praying out of my sinful heart, instead of praying the words of The Spirit of Christ.

What a change that brought me.

Yet i will encourage any believer to call out to God. Learn to do it all the time. i found this word to be very helpful understanding what needed to happen in my heart for my prayers to be answered.

peace.

Isaiah 58:1-12
“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’



“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.

Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?



“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.


“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

 
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Fervent

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"I can do nothing of myself..."

There is no overreliance on prayer, prayer is what enables us.

But prayer is for us. Seeing a need, having the resources, and offering nothing but empty words instead of meeting the need is not prayer but a mockery of it.
 
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Praying these type of prayers are meaningless an insult to the intellect of the believer and to the powerful working of God in Spirit when we pray in the Spirit of Jesus to Him.


Its not an insult, if it scales to fit real world scenarios. I'll give you an example.

There are estimated to be around 330 million americans in the USA.

It might be fair to say the only thing americans need to fix healthcare, infrastructure, afghanistan, taxes, job markets, COVID and other issues. Is for people to "read the manual" make a better effort to educate themselves on topics like healthcare, to be liberated with truth, (you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free).

Being informed, knowing truth and having knowledge means christians cannot be as easily be misled by the father of lies. We need to develop our base of truth and knowledge to resist the lies of satan. To resist lies which pave the way towards enslavement and destruction of rights and freedom.

Instead of taking direct steps to fix issues like healthcare. Making a basic effort to be educated and informed as to become -liberated with truth- enough to understand and fix our problems. People sometimes decide to pray instead. Expecting God to do all of the work. While they themselves take no steps to fix issues like healthcare. It may not be the correct approach in terms of what the christian faith is supposed to follow.

Its more of a parody, parable or satire. But the precedent and example still applies.
 
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Jay Sea

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A man could not figure out how to change the ring tone on his cell phone. He prayed everyday without ceasing for 5 years that God would show him how to change it. He asked his church prayer group to pray for him. He asked christian internet communities to pray for him. Nothing worked. He still could not change the ring tone on his phone.

One day a meme randomly appeared on his social media timeline:

rtfm.jpg


He dug out the manual for his cellphone and looked up the section about changing ring tones.

5 minutes later he had succeeded in getting the ring tone he wanted.

5 years of praying without ceasing with zero results. Or 5 minutes of reading the instruction manual with the desired result. Which is the life God intended for christians to live?
I was taught that prayer was a conversation with G-d about anything and that he was not a concierge to get you things. If you made requests what ever was his will was his will, so be prepared to continue living in love for whatever.
In LOve
Jay SEa
 
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JAL

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A man could not figure out how to change the ring tone on his cell phone. He prayed everyday without ceasing for 5 years that God would show him how to change it. He asked his church prayer group to pray for him. He asked christian internet communities to pray for him. Nothing worked. He still could not change the ring tone on his phone.

One day a meme randomly appeared on his social media timeline:

rtfm.jpg


He dug out the manual for his cellphone and looked up the section about changing ring tones.

5 minutes later he had succeeded in getting the ring tone he wanted.

5 years of praying without ceasing with zero results. Or 5 minutes of reading the instruction manual with the desired result. Which is the life God intended for christians to live?
Your perspective seems a bit one-sided, and thus slightly out of balance. You're advocating to read the cellphone manual to put out ONE FIRE. An equally important question is, why do we have so many fires? It's because we're a world under judgment. Fire can be VERY pressing, and it often DOES force us to take steps to put it out, if we are to survive, but things will only get worse if we don't recognize prayer as the long-term solution. We need prayer to elicit revival, that is, to win the favor of the God who can put out ALL fires at once.

Applying this to the cellphone scenario, God was probably very pleased with those who relied on prayer, as He credited that prayer as a down-payment for the next revival. After all, a ringtone issue isn't a particularly dangerous fire, and thus no harm was done by attempting to solve it by prayer. Other fires, being far more urgent, will press us, in good conscience, to immediately quench them without taking the time to pray.

To summarize, we have to do our best to keep all these things in balance. Otherwise we might start to think that prayer isn't much useful or necessary.
 
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The Liturgist

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Once again, no. We are commanded to pray without ceasing. God will grant what is good and necessary for our salvation. He is not however Siri or Alexa; it seems to be absurd to ask him to tell us how to change the ringtone on our phone, which is a low materialistic concern.
 
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Strong in Him

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A man could not figure out how to change the ring tone on his cell phone. He prayed everyday without ceasing for 5 years that God would show him how to change it. He asked his church prayer group to pray for him. He asked christian internet communities to pray for him. Nothing worked. He still could not change the ring tone on his phone.

One day a meme randomly appeared on his social media timeline:

rtfm.jpg


He dug out the manual for his cellphone and looked up the section about changing ring tones.

5 minutes later he had succeeded in getting the ring tone he wanted.

5 years of praying without ceasing with zero results. Or 5 minutes of reading the instruction manual with the desired result. Which is the life God intended for christians to live?

If that is a true story and a Christian, the church prayer group and Christian internet communities were seriously interceding to God about how to change a ringtone on a phone, they all need a lot more teaching on the subject of prayer.
Not to mention a huge dose of common sense.
 
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Strong in Him

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have you read "God helps those who help themselves"

Wherever you've read that, it's not Scriptural.
That makes prayer conditional - God will only help those who can prove how much they want his help.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In the OT, God led a nation out of Egypt, fought their battles, confused their enemies, provided manna in the wilderness, rescued men from fiery furnaces etc etc. In the NT Jesus healed the blind, deaf and lame, raised the dead and laid down his life for us.
What did these people do to help themselves? Nothing.
How did we help God to bring about our salvation?

Those who are proud, rely on their own strength and cleverness will doubtless not believe that they need God's help.
God helps those who CAN'T help themselves.
 
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Strong in Him

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quoting one sentence w/o the rest of my post takes it out of context

No, your post started with the words, "have you read 'God helps those who help themselves'?" The rest of you post illustrate that - i.e if you want something, don't just pray about it, DO something.
But that saying isn't Scriptural - I don't where a person is supposed to have read it, but it's not in the Bible.

yes, God will help us but people need to act in many cases

In many cases, maybe; but not all the time.
God helps those who can't help themselves, especially when it comes to healing and salvation.

people can't be lazy & expect God to do EVERYTHING

No, but it's also wrong to rush ahead and do something, assuming that you know that is what God wants.
If we use time and energy doing something that we think that God wants us to do and he doesn't, either we won't succeed or we will but we will have missed out on/not have the energy for the thing that God is really calling us to do.

i.e. people pray for a spouse but they won't date
they wait for God to send someone to their door

that did happen for my grandma
a man saw her outside her apt laughing with her friends
he later came to her door & asked her out...they married!

Well there you are then!
It's not the norm, maybe; but people can meet their future spouses/bosses in all kinds of circumstances.

I was thinking only the other day of a deaconess friend of mine who got a job she didn't even have an interest in. She saw an advert for a job which was in the town where her daughter lived - that was what made her look twice at it. But she had no plans to leave our church so she shut the paper and forgot about it. A little while later she got a phone call from someone (may have been a vicar or higher up) who said "have you applied for that job yet?" She said, "no, I have no plans to", but prayed about it and felt she should.
Incidentally, this same person had also been a nurse and met her husband when he was a patient on her ward and made a cheeky comment.

I have heard of others who have got jobs/callings they had never even considered - I would even say that my own calling as a preacher comes into that category.

I have two single Christian siblings who don't date & no one's showing up at their door

When it comes to dating, getting out and meeting people is the norm, and we certainly can't expect that God will choose someone for us and send them along without us having to bother.
But he could do.
 
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Strong in Him

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we felt God called us to adopt
it was difficult to do the paperwork and all that was required plus several years to save the money needed
we were told it would take 9 months
by the time Christmas #5 came up with no child, we were ready to give up
were we wrong? did God not want us to be parents
when does one realize no, that's NOT God's plan?

two months later, we got a call from agency
"you have a daughter"


AND YES....we did have to do something!
research agencies, do the paperwork, take required classes, fingerprinting, physicals with bloodwork, get 5 references, have fire dept check our house, interviewed several times by social worker, etc
it took so long, we had to do 2 homestudy updates


if we sat back & did nothing, we wouldn't be parents
no one just brought a baby in a basket to our doorstep even though we prayed

Yes, there are many situations where we pray, take action and leave it to God. Other times God acts, or calls, before we even ask him - Isaiah 65:24. Jesus also said that our heavenly Father knows our needs before we ask him, Matthew 6:8.

But the, unscriptural, saying "God helps those who helps themselves" is still untrue.
That is saying that unless we do something to help ourselves first, then God won't help us - that God asks/expects us to DO stuff before he can, or will, step in. That is not too far from the idea that we have to earn God's help/approval/blessings - which is impossible.
 
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zoidar

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A man could not figure out how to change the ring tone on his cell phone. He prayed everyday without ceasing for 5 years that God would show him how to change it. He asked his church prayer group to pray for him. He asked christian internet communities to pray for him. Nothing worked. He still could not change the ring tone on his phone.

One day a meme randomly appeared on his social media timeline:

rtfm.jpg


He dug out the manual for his cellphone and looked up the section about changing ring tones.

5 minutes later he had succeeded in getting the ring tone he wanted.

5 years of praying without ceasing with zero results. Or 5 minutes of reading the instruction manual with the desired result. Which is the life God intended for christians to live?

We shouldn't pray for help with silly things. But we can always thank God for what He has given us. Prayer should be for things that are meaningful. If I spend five years praying for a new ringtone, there is something wrong with my discernment.
 
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Philip_B

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In bending our knees in prayer we should seek to conform our will to God's will, rather that to conform God's will according to our will.
 
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