If God allows evil to happen, does he answer ANY prayers?

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Walterross

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So I’ve looked around about why God allows evil. I’ve come to the conclusion that he allows bad things to happen to respect our free will. I’ve watched the Ascension Presents video on YouTube with Father Mike Schmitz about why God allows bad things to happen. In the video he talks about God’s perfect and permissive will. I guess I understand when he says that he is more worried about our holiness than solving our problems. Yet, I’ve been troubled when I go to pray. I’ve thought, if God allows bad things to happen, does he actually help create good, or is it just “allowed” as well? Does God answer any prayers? For example, I suffer from depression and anxiety and pray to have God help me in getting rid of these ailments. I’m in a state of grace, and I do my very best to do God’s will, yet it doesn’t seem like I hear from him, or get any better. I feel like God is allowing this to happen to me, even if he doesn’t want me to have this suffering. But he won’t do anything about it because it has nothing to do with his perfect will? Then what’s the point of praying at all, unless for the goal to get to heaven? Should we even bother praying for healing? For world peace? For the conversion of sinners? For an end to world hunger? It seems like God is not in play in any of these problems and yet we are always praying for their intentions. It’s funny hearing about how Jesus healed so many in his time, yet so many go unhealed today. Does God just not want that physical relationship with his followers and believers as he had back then? Has he forgotten about us?
 
It sounds to me like you’re having a crisis of faith…
Try to remember the times when you were secure in your trust in the kindness, goodness, blessings and provision of God in your life. What has changed IN YOU since then?
 
I guess I’ve just gotten older and realized that God does not answer ALL prayers, even good intentioned ones, which is somewhat frustrating. I do believe in God and know that He leads to ultimate truth and goodness but it just feels hard to feel his presence in my everyday life. I realize you can go to adoration but you just sit there and you’re supposed to “adore” God which is all fine and dandy, but I still don’t “feel” Him if that makes sense?
 
My humble advise to you from my heart is this:

Be very, very careful to never feed your doubts. Only feed your faith. And feed your faith often. I am not a wise person but I know how the devil works. I wish you nothing but blessings and peace.
 
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What use is there to praying for world peace, for an end to world hunger? People have been praying for such things for thousands of years, and such prayers have never been answered. I wonder if other prayers were answered. I wonder if a good God, who helps people, even exists.
 
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Fraevo63 said:
My humble advise to you from my heart is this:

Be very, very careful to never feed your doubts. Only feed your faith. And feed your faith often. I am not a wise person but I know how the devil works. I wish you nothing but blessings and peace.
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I appreciate that man. Thank you and I wish the same for you.
 
CzechMan said:
What use is there to praying for world peace, for an end to world hunger? People have been praying for such things for thousands of years, and such prayers have never been answered. I wonder if other prayers were answered. I wonder if a good God, who helps people, even exists.
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I’ve struggled with these doubts as well, man. I don’t know how to answer the beginning, partly because that was my original question on the post haha. But I’m sure that God does exist. Have you looked at St. Thomas Aquinas’ proofs of God’s existence? I would look into that and also look at this video:
. It explains God’s existence also, but based on Jesus’ time on Earth. Jesus’ existence, was indeed a fact. Every historian states this. They really helped me when I was confused about God’s existence and I hope they help you too. God bless!
 
Thank you. Maybe a good God exists, but is unable to help anyone. I sure wish a good God existed, who can help people. But wishing that, does not help make it so. So I don’t know.
 
I hear ya, I know God is ultimately good, and I think we just do not know his ways. We would have no morals if it were not for a morally good God. We are finite while he is infinite.
 
If God took away all that is evil, we would not have free will anymore. It is up to us to work on fixing some of the world problems. Prayer works. But it takes faith, perseverance, humility.
 
OK, I have just watched this youtube video. And found it unconvincing. After all, Jesus never even wrote anything, in his lifetime. Except there is this letter to a king of Ephesus, but hardly anyone considers it as convincing that it is from him. So it did not even make it into the New Testament. So what were the first writings from Christians? They did not start being written until about 25 years after Jesus died, as Mr. Strobel explains that the first epistle to the Corinthians was written. I mean we have contemporary reports of miracles, about miracles by Charismatic Christians, Trinitarian Pentecostal Christians, Oneness Pentecostal Christians, Unitarian Pentecostal Christians, Hasidic Jews, Hindus, etc. Contemporary ones. Are they all credible? Yet Strobel claims here that legends don’t form until 2 generations later. So as much as I would like to believe in miracles, I am still skeptical. So I don’t know. But if really a good God can exist who can help people, that would be wonderful. Let’s hope it is true.
 
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We might have morals simply because of evolution. Because they are an evolutionary advantage for a social species. As is true of some other social animals.
 
Prayer Changes Things

Our prayers are always answered. Sometimes with a yes and sometimes with no. Always by His will.
 
I’ve suffered most of my life from a medical condition that causes a lot of pain. Sometimes for weeks and sometimes for months.

I always just offered it up but the last two times I prayed hard asking for relief. Both times the pain went away.

Deo gratias
 
I have suffered also from depression and and anxiety. Runs in the family so has a likely biological component.

If God had taken away my anxiety I would not have come to know him as closely as I do. There are some things in my life that merited anxiety, and the anxiety was the fuel to change them.
 
Remember a few things that have been said about this on CAF and elsewhere. First, Gd may answer prayers but the answer is not always in the affirmative and does not always agree with the answer that we would like. Why is this? Sometimes it may be because our answer is not really the best for us, at least not now, even though we might not now understand why that is. This leads to the second point, namely, that Gd answers prayers not only according to His will but according to His time. We want answers and solutions immediately, especially in our present fast-paced Internet culture. But Gd takes His time because He knows that an immediate answer is not always the best thing for us. Thirdly, prayer is for our benefit, not for the benefit of Gd. It enables us to increase our sense of attachment with Gd and His divine will.
 
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I understand what you’re getting at. One of the biggest selling points for me was when Pilate was asked about the body no longer being in the tomb. The body was no longer in the tomb, there is no denying that. Pontius Pilate was an enemy of Jesus so he wouldn’t say anything to support him in any way. He concluded that the disciples took the body. Yet they had no means to do so, and the the tomb was guarded. Even if they DID manage to take the body, it would have been found or somebody would have said something. But the main point is, Pilate saying that the disciples took the body was also Pilate admitting that the body was missing. With all the buzz that followed Jesus, if his body was hidden somewhere, someone would have found it.
 
I’m sorry to hear that. It’s great that your weakness has drawn you closer to God, though. I guess one of my biggest fears is having my mental illnesses leak into my marriage and affect me being a good husband and father.
 
Praying for world peace and an end to world hunger seems illogical to me.
Jesus said, the poor will always be with you. So we know hunger will no doubt continue, and a lot of it is due to human greed and selfishness. We know that lots of aid to suffering countries is hijacked by the governments.
And human beings being what they are, fights, arguments. battles, and wars will continue until the end. We have free will.
What we can pray for is an end to hunger for a specific person or family or area. We can pray for peace in our families and our cities. Those prayers are more likely to be answered, I believe.

Also, if you are looking for miracles, consider the tilma which still exists bearing the virgin of Guadalupe, and the miracle of Lanciano, and the miracles at Lourdes. God does plenty of miracles, he just doesn’t do them every half an hour so that everyone can see them.
 
God answers every single prayer we say. But the answers aren’t always things we can recognize and distinguish. Sometimes they are yes, sometimes no, sometimes not yet, sometimes things we can’t see. Like I pray to hopefully meet my future wife soon, I know He heard me but I don’t know when I’ll meet her. Since I haven’t met her yet, I assume either I or her or both of us aren’t ready yet.

Sometimes I pray that God helps me with a test or a lot of homework I have to do or stress in a social situation. I just got back from the March For Life (wooo) and I was nervous because of all the crowds, possibly 200,000 people, was crazy! But Jesus has helped me and I was not nervous and these tests and homeworks and social situations, looking back on them, Jesus has always helped me make them easier. In some way, He lowered my stress and anxiety and helped me.

To me, this is proof that He hears all my prayers. Sometimes when I know I have a social situation coming up where I might be talking with a Catholic woman, and I’m nervous about it all day, I pray and ask Jesus to help me not be nervous. I usually forget I prayed this until a couple days later and then I think about it and realize, yeah Jesus really did help me in that situation not be nervous.

Jesus hears all of your prayers, sometimes it’s just hard to know what the answer is. Keep watching Fr. Mike Schmitz! 😀
 
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