Christian Forums
This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
-
-
Guest, Join Papa Zoom today for some uplifting biblical encouragement! --> Daily Verses
Does anybody else feels that God answers your prayers only when they are for good of others and almost never for yourself?
- Thread starter Padre Pio
- Start date
Well, I feel like God answers my prayers, only it often doesn't come nearly as fast as I'd like.
I noticed you don't identify as a Christian though, Padre Pio. That would suggest that you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, so my first response would be to ask if you have ever truly asked Him to be your Lord and Savior before.
Maybe He is waiting for you to believe in Him first? I could not promise you that every prayer is immediately going to be granted if you did, because like I said, my prayers aren't always answered immediately. But a vast many are answered, and I believe they would be for you as well.
God bless,
Hidden In Him
Padre Pio
Member
I have asked Jesus to be my lord and savior before and I was actually a Christian a few years back and what I still truly love about Christianity is the mental peace that comes with it (forgiving others, loving others and many other good teachings of Jesus made me a Christian) but I couldn't keep than one-sided relationship with God...
I loved God with all my heart and I wanted him before anything but I could no longer stand the fact that God treated me like an orphan when I needed him the most.
Sounds like maybe the very thing you resent Him for is the thing you need to let go of, Padre Pio.
Job had to endure some terrible things as well, but He refused to denounce God even when his wife told Him to curse God and die, and he was eventually rewarded for his faithfulness.
Padre Pio
Member
God has actually taken away my porn and masturbation addiction and I'm really grateful for that and it's definitely a true miracle of God... I don't even feel attracted to porn actors anymore and it's really amazing... But he doesn't seem to help me with anything more important, all I ask him of is to either heal my body or quickly kill me but he's doing neither of those. He seems to abandon me.
Padre Pio
Member
I can understand where you are coming from but the whole story of Job seems really sadistic and unjust to me... God made a bet with Satan and then "tested" Job by killing his family and then gave him a new family as a reward, God is a real sadist in that story and nobody deserves to suffer like Job, in my opinion.
No, no. That's the way it gets interpreted by some, but it doesn't bear out.
When God asked Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job?" He wasn't asking Him a question, He was drawing Satan out to declare why he was there standing before the council of God as an angel of Light even though he wasn't one. God very well knew why Satan was there, He was just drawing him out, and the whole thing became a lesson to all creation for the rest of eternity that there are some who love God for more than simply what He gives them, but they truly love Him for Himself. That's why God allowed Satan to try and prove Job didn't love Him. He knew Job would pass the test, prove Satan wrong, become a foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus Christ who also laid down His life for the Father, and be greatly rewarded for it both in this life and eternity.
So it wasn't a bet, and God didn't test Job. He already knew what Job would do. It's a good story, and very encouraging if you ask me. But you have to view it like that or Satan will convince you that God is your enemy, and sadistic and unjust.
st_worm2
2024 Supporter
Hello Padre Pio, especially to those of us who are (or who eventually will be) His children (by adoption), God is known to us as our loving, heavenly Abba (Father in the sense of "Daddy", that is), because that is what He truly is to us. He loves us and He expresses His love for us by always wanting the very best for us (and by seeing that we get it, sometimes in spite of us
).Unlike us, He knows what is ~TRULY~ best for us, because He sees the big picture of our lives in a way that we cannot, and when He blesses us, He does so, first and foremost, by giving us what He knows that we need, rather than the things that we think that we want. In fact, I would say that His principal interest for us is often quite different than our principal interest is for ourselves (in the moment), because His focus is on our eternal wellbeing, rather than on our temporal comfort (becoming more and more Christlike in the here and now often involves surviving those times which are anything but comfortable for us).
All that said, I believe that God is answering your prayers, He's just not doing so in the way that you'd like Him to
Remember that God answers our prayers in at least three different ways, "yes", "no", and/or "not right now". This is where two of the most important words to remember AND (oft times) two of the most difficult words to apply to our Christian lives comes in, "Trust God" .. e.g. Proverbs 3:5-6 (words that really get their deepest meaning from the times in our lives when things are NOT going our way/when life seems difficult to impossible to deal with, because "trusting God" when things are going our way is never hard to do, yes ).Pastor Chuck Swindoll has an interesting quote concerning this which says,
"Two words will help you cope when you run low on hope: accept and trust."
Finally, the Bible tells us how to get our heart's desire from God in verses like the one below. It's a wonderful command with a wonderful promise attached to it, the key to which (to getting God to fulfill the promise half of the verse, IOW) is to ALWAYS keep our focus on Him, NEVER on the things that we think that we want from Him.
Psalm 37
4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
God bless you!!--David
Last edited:
Christ_empowered
Member
It’s understandable….before genuine conversion…to judge God by prevailing human standards. I remember falling asleep during bible study 
.
10 years into truly knowing Jesus Christ I respect scripture. I’m not as gung ho about the Bible as some believers but I accept it as revealed truth for believers.
I think
maybe a good step for you might be to pray for God to take you as you are now and reveal Himself to you over time. Humble yourself and pray to paraphrase scripture. He can renew your mind not simply patch you up like the world 
sometimes offers. It’s a new birth not behavioral modification lol 
. 10 years into truly knowing Jesus Christ I respect scripture. I’m not as gung ho about the Bible as some believers but I accept it as revealed truth for believers.
I think
maybe a good step for you might be to pray for God to take you as you are now and reveal Himself to you over time. Humble yourself and pray to paraphrase scripture. He can renew your mind not simply patch you up like the world sometimes offers. It’s a new birth not behavioral modification lol God never does anything or permits anything to be done in the lives of each one of us on this earth that is not for our good. Even when He punishes us in this life, as our sins deserve, it comes from His merciful love. St. Catherine of Siena, by the grace of God, said: “Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind.” You must firmly believe that God answers sincere prayer to Him for the greatest good of each one of us.
Psalm chapter 50. God doesn't listen to the wicked or reprobates. They wont repent and conform to God's standard.
It's those who do God's will. Selfish people are cut off from God.
James chapter 1. Be doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
Closed minded people are not fit for service. They won't study the bible and plant seeds for God. Or they follow false preachers. They are spirtualty polluted.
Reprobates/narcissist contaminate God's word. They oppose the truth. They yield bad fruit. They have the mentality of satan.
Jeremiah chapter 6 and tiitus chapter 1 to document reprobates.
Teachers sent by God, have holy spirit. They teach sound doctrine. They produce good fruit.
We see the distinction between children of light and darkness.
It's those who do God's will. Selfish people are cut off from God.
James chapter 1. Be doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
Closed minded people are not fit for service. They won't study the bible and plant seeds for God. Or they follow false preachers. They are spirtualty polluted.
Reprobates/narcissist contaminate God's word. They oppose the truth. They yield bad fruit. They have the mentality of satan.
Jeremiah chapter 6 and tiitus chapter 1 to document reprobates.
Teachers sent by God, have holy spirit. They teach sound doctrine. They produce good fruit.
We see the distinction between children of light and darkness.