Posts

UGW #9a: "Name it and claim it" nonsense

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  Understanding God's Will #9a:   (There are no "Calvinism" updates added to this post): How come some prayers don’t seem to work, even when you believe that it’s God’s Will?    And how long do you keep praying for something (especially when it’s a painful issue) when God seems to not be listening or answering (this will be answered in a later post)?                   Boy, I tell you, I struggle with this one all the time.    I want something so bad sometimes (even something that’s good and beneficial), and I pray earnestly for it.    And when it doesn’t happen, I struggle with why my prayers aren’t getting things done.               When we were considering a possible adoption (of a baby of a relative who was possibly going to give her up), I was reading a book that basically taught the “name it and claim it” idea.    If I felt ...
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UGW #8: Advice about prayer

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  Understanding God's Will #8: (I am combining three posts - 8a, 8b, 8c - into one post here.) 8a.   If praying for God’s Will is necessary, then do I have to know the specifics of what to ask for?    How do we pray so that His Will gets done? (This is just some of my own thoughts and advice on prayer.) I think that it’s okay to ask for certain things and to make specific requests, but I also think that  God doesn’t always need us to know exactly what to ask for.    Because it’s not always about how  we  want Him to act or answer.    God knows the best course of action, so we don’t have to have the details all ironed out before we pray.    But we do need to pray.    We need to share our concerns with Him and give them over to Him, to be transparent and authentic with Him, to confess our sins, to honestly share our wants and needs, to be sensitive to the Spirit, and to ask for His providence, His wisdom, and His g...
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UGW #7: But God already knows our needs

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  Understanding God's Will #7: But what about the verses that talk about how God knows what we need before we ask, like  Matthew 6:8  and  Matthew 6:32 ?    Doesn’t this show that we don’t really need to pray for His care, because He’ll care for us anyway, since He knows our needs?             God knows what we need, and He can read our thoughts.    (All the more reason to make sure that we set our minds on things above and not on impure, ungodly things.)    But once again, it doesn’t say that He responds to our thoughts or that He gives us what we need just because He knows we need it.    We can choose to live apart from God, in self-sufficiency.    We can choose to live life sitting back, putting our feet up and saying, “Ok, God, bring on the blessings... Look how well He takes care of me!”    We can choose to think like Calvinists do, that God's already planned out everything...
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