Abandonment to Divine Providence vs Prayer

[otjm]

If I see all things, good and bad, as coming from God, isn’t praying to God to change the way something is the opposite of abandonment?

For starters, I have a significant problem seeing that bad things come from God. If God is Love - which St John tells us - then “bad” cannot come from God. It is, rather, from our own sinfulness which has caused a broken world - both of people and the world itself.

Abandonment to God’s will as I understand it is accepting God’s will - for example, the death of a child. And I cannot comprehend abandonment to mean, as I have seen some people take it, to not make nay effort to save that child (e.g. through surgery).

Those who refuse to plead with God seem to miss Christ’s comments about asking the Father. John 16:23 “Amen amen I say to you, whatever you ask from the Father, he will give it to you in my name.”

Pleading with God is not a sign (in and of itself) that we are not willing to accept God’s will if it be different than our pleading.

It is only when our pleading is a sign that we do not or will not accept God’s will (and I have known people who “got mad at God” and abandoned the [practice of their faith) that we are in conflict with abandoning ourselves to God’s will.

 

[WatchfulPilgrim]

I was not thinking of abandonment as in never actually doing anything - like not taking a sick child to the doctor, although I suppose that mindset could lead in that direction…

I guess I am a “why not me” kind of thinker, as opposed to the “why me”-type. I see things like illness and death as a normal part of life. But I would still act in a way to try to prevent or lessen suffering.

I think of adversity as God’s will, at least permissively. God also sometimes chastises those He loves, which causes some suffering. But perhaps it is not up to us to determine why things are as they are when difficulty arises, but to humbly accept them if, when we pray to have them removed, He does not remove them (?)

 

[stoplooklisten]

A principle in prayer is to “seek first the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33). Afterwards, clothing and food and all that we might ask for will be granted. Our heavenly father knows that we need these things.

In the Lord’s prayer, we pray for “God’s kingdom to come and God’s will be done” before we ask for daily bread.

And, God’s will in general is that we show in ourselves the level of love and mercy towards others that we want Almighty God to show towards us.

 

[WatchfulPilgrim]

Very good insight about the Our Father, thank you.