A short article at Is there evidence for answered prayer? Does God answer prayer? considers the question: is there evidence for answered prayer?
I'd like to share some excerpts, with some thoughts I had when reading it, in blue. If you want to see the full article, you can click on the link above.
There are plenty of passages in the Bible that clearly state that God answers prayer (James 5:16–18; John 15:7; 1 John 3:22) and countless stories about God answering prayer—sometimes in dramatic fashion.
A very important point to note here is this: these stories which the article is talking about are all from the Bible. In other words, we do not know that they all happened; we only know that the Bible says they happened. Keep that in mind, we'll come back to it in a moment.
In 1 Samuel 1 we see Hannah pray for a child; God granted her request and gave her Samuel. In one of the most stunning accounts in the Bible, Elijah calls upon God to consume, with fire, a water soaked and flooded sacrifice he has built before the priests of a false god. God answers Elijah (1 Kings 18).
Answers to Jesus' prayers are given as well, such as the time He prayed for His friend Lazarus to come back from the dead (John 11:1–44), when He prayed before feeding the 4,000 and the 5,000 (Matthew 14:13–21; 15:29–39), and others.
In Acts 12 Peter was imprisoned and miraculously released; we are told that the other believers were gathered together praying (Acts 12:6–19). It was as Paul and Silas were "praying and singing hymns to God" that an earthquake came and opened the prison doors where they had been jailed. The prisoners remained, the jailer and his family came to salvation in Jesus, and Paul and Silas were released from prison the next day (Acts. 16:16–40).
Of course, there are many other accounts in the Bible of answered prayer.
There are indeed. But again, these are nothing but stories in the Bible. A story can be as impressive and amazing as the writer wants it. But do we see miracles like this happening in real life?
Today we have the accounts of millions of Christians who will testify to God's goodness in answering prayer. It could be argued that some of these are false accounts or even "coincidence." But the sheer volume of anecdotal evidence for answered prayer, from Bible-believing Christians who faithfully walk with God, is not easily dismissed.
Are you sure about that? Because it seems to me that the millions of accounts of answered prayers seem of a rather different sort to the examples you gave us from the Bible. Those stories of answered prayers seemed to be of genuinely miraculous occurrences; the type of prayers that Christians say have been answered (not that I've heard all of them by any means, but I've heard plenty) seem of a different order altogether; generally, it seems that they could have been the result of coincidence.
It should be noted that God does not always answer our prayers the way we would like. His own Word puts qualifications to God's willingness to answer prayer at times. Psalm 66:18 says God won't hear prayers from those who are wicked. First John 5:14–15 says that the prayers we ask according to God's will are granted. James 4:3 says we sometimes don't receive what we pray for because of wrong motives. James 1:6–8 and Hebrews 11:6 indicate that a lack of faith may hinder our prayers.
This seems to be a variation on the popular saying that God always answers prayers, it's just that sometimes he answers "yes", sometimes "no", and sometimes "maybe later". But if we think about it, these three responses cover every single outcome of a prayer. And therefore, they mean nothing, because the responses you get are indistinguishable from pure chance. If I roll a dice and pray to get a 6, then I might get lucky, or I might not, or I might be lucky at a later date. The same with praying to get a job, or recover from sickness, or anything else that I might pray about.
Anything? Actually, no. Because it turns out that if you pray for something actually impossible, God's answer will always be no. That is actually something you can test. Try it for yourself! Pray for Jesus to appear to you in the flesh. He won't. Pray to levitate. You won't. Pray for a die to roll a seven. It won't.
So what we've seen is this: there are plenty of accounts of answered prayers that we can be sure were actually answers from God Himself, proof positive that God exists. But you know what? They all took place in stories. None of them took place in real life. None of them ever do.
Why is this?
Because it's not true that God always answers our prayers and gives us what we want. It's not even true that God always answers our prayers with yes, maybe later, or no.
Quite simply, God never answers prayers at all.
I'd like to share some excerpts, with some thoughts I had when reading it, in blue. If you want to see the full article, you can click on the link above.
There are plenty of passages in the Bible that clearly state that God answers prayer (James 5:16–18; John 15:7; 1 John 3:22) and countless stories about God answering prayer—sometimes in dramatic fashion.
A very important point to note here is this: these stories which the article is talking about are all from the Bible. In other words, we do not know that they all happened; we only know that the Bible says they happened. Keep that in mind, we'll come back to it in a moment.
In 1 Samuel 1 we see Hannah pray for a child; God granted her request and gave her Samuel. In one of the most stunning accounts in the Bible, Elijah calls upon God to consume, with fire, a water soaked and flooded sacrifice he has built before the priests of a false god. God answers Elijah (1 Kings 18).
Answers to Jesus' prayers are given as well, such as the time He prayed for His friend Lazarus to come back from the dead (John 11:1–44), when He prayed before feeding the 4,000 and the 5,000 (Matthew 14:13–21; 15:29–39), and others.
In Acts 12 Peter was imprisoned and miraculously released; we are told that the other believers were gathered together praying (Acts 12:6–19). It was as Paul and Silas were "praying and singing hymns to God" that an earthquake came and opened the prison doors where they had been jailed. The prisoners remained, the jailer and his family came to salvation in Jesus, and Paul and Silas were released from prison the next day (Acts. 16:16–40).
Of course, there are many other accounts in the Bible of answered prayer.
There are indeed. But again, these are nothing but stories in the Bible. A story can be as impressive and amazing as the writer wants it. But do we see miracles like this happening in real life?
Today we have the accounts of millions of Christians who will testify to God's goodness in answering prayer. It could be argued that some of these are false accounts or even "coincidence." But the sheer volume of anecdotal evidence for answered prayer, from Bible-believing Christians who faithfully walk with God, is not easily dismissed.
Are you sure about that? Because it seems to me that the millions of accounts of answered prayers seem of a rather different sort to the examples you gave us from the Bible. Those stories of answered prayers seemed to be of genuinely miraculous occurrences; the type of prayers that Christians say have been answered (not that I've heard all of them by any means, but I've heard plenty) seem of a different order altogether; generally, it seems that they could have been the result of coincidence.
It should be noted that God does not always answer our prayers the way we would like. His own Word puts qualifications to God's willingness to answer prayer at times. Psalm 66:18 says God won't hear prayers from those who are wicked. First John 5:14–15 says that the prayers we ask according to God's will are granted. James 4:3 says we sometimes don't receive what we pray for because of wrong motives. James 1:6–8 and Hebrews 11:6 indicate that a lack of faith may hinder our prayers.
This seems to be a variation on the popular saying that God always answers prayers, it's just that sometimes he answers "yes", sometimes "no", and sometimes "maybe later". But if we think about it, these three responses cover every single outcome of a prayer. And therefore, they mean nothing, because the responses you get are indistinguishable from pure chance. If I roll a dice and pray to get a 6, then I might get lucky, or I might not, or I might be lucky at a later date. The same with praying to get a job, or recover from sickness, or anything else that I might pray about.
Anything? Actually, no. Because it turns out that if you pray for something actually impossible, God's answer will always be no. That is actually something you can test. Try it for yourself! Pray for Jesus to appear to you in the flesh. He won't. Pray to levitate. You won't. Pray for a die to roll a seven. It won't.
So what we've seen is this: there are plenty of accounts of answered prayers that we can be sure were actually answers from God Himself, proof positive that God exists. But you know what? They all took place in stories. None of them took place in real life. None of them ever do.
Why is this?
Because it's not true that God always answers our prayers and gives us what we want. It's not even true that God always answers our prayers with yes, maybe later, or no.
Quite simply, God never answers prayers at all.
