If we truly seek God's Will, can our prayer fail?

[springbreeze]

Dear friends

I was wondering that if we truly seek God’s Will can our prayer fail?

Any thoughts?

Thank you in advance

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

springbreeze:

Dear friends

I was wondering that if we truly seek God’s Will can our prayer fail?

Any thoughts?

Thank you in advance

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

Hi Teresa,
Yes. It can. In as much as we may pray for someting contrary to God’s will. Never the less we will receive an answer in that God will do what needs doing.
the Saints would have their prayers ansered so quicly and even miraculously because their wills were so aligned or united with God’s will.

 

[Mt19_26]

If one is truly seeking God’s will but it in mortal sin the prayer will fail. Also, I believe that a prayer may fail from our point of view but in reality it didn’t fail at all. God knows what is best for us and what we pray for might not be what is best for us.

 

[buzzcut]

Hi, Teresa, As far as I understand it, seeking God’s will is only one half of the equation. The other half is abandonning all traces of self-will or personal ambition. Sorry, I have to get going now, otherwise I’d give you a quote.

 

[asquared]

prayers never fail. they also never function as effective commands to God to perform to our satisfaction. All prayer should be in the mode our Savior taught us: praise, worship, thanksgiving, contrition, petition and abandonment to God’s will. Any prayer that ignores these is not prayer but wishful thinking or fantasy, or peremptory order-giving. Prayers in the proper spirit are always efficacious, but it is only incidentally, or granted by God in order to bring us closer to Him, that we perceive results and effects of our prayers. Just because we do not see the effects in no way implies our prayers failed. A soul in mortal sin cannot pray effectively (except for the grace of contrition) since they are in a state of denial of God’s will.

 

[Prometheum_x]

Mt19:26:

If one is truly seeking God’s will but it in mortal sin the prayer will fail. Also, I believe that a prayer may fail from our point of view but in reality it didn’t fail at all. God knows what is best for us and what we pray for might not be what is best for us.

The prayer will automatically fail if one is in mortal sin? Or, the prayer is less likely to be granted in that case? Crucial distinction, in my mind.

 

[Mt19_26]

Prometheum_x:

The prayer will automatically fail if one is in mortal sin? Or, the prayer is less likely to be granted in that case? Crucial distinction, in my mind.

Sorry…I should not have used the word “will”. It will be less likely to be granted, as you mentioned, is a better statement. Also, I believe the nature of the prayer also has an effect. If one is praying for forgiveness while in mortal sin I believe the prayer will more likely be heard and granted than if they were praying for something else. Especially if one is praying the Act of Contrition in confession. The prayer will be heard and granted. Otherwise, how could one ever get out of mortal sin if the prayer aways fails while in mortal sin. Hope that clarifies what I should have said in the first place.

 

[buzzcut]

Teresa, this is the quote I didn’t have time to send you earlier today. It’s from a letter that J. G. Govan wrote in 1885:

At the time of last Keswick Convention, when there was so much talk about the blessing of a clean heart, my mind was exercised a great deal on the subject. At length the Lord showed me the truth, that if I was willing to give up, not only all sins, but all selfish ambitions and aims in life – in fact give up self altogether into His hands, to go, be, or do just as He led – He would cleanse me from all sin and take up His abode with me. The verses that principally shewed me this truth, of the cleansing or taking away of sin out of the heart, instead of the continual repression of it, are in Ephesians iv. 21-24, ‘As the truth is in Jesus’, etc. The sixth of Romans also shewed me this life, and many other passages.

I found that the complete giving up of self was to flesh and blood a hard thing to do, and for a time I was not altogether willing to be crucified to the world and to have the flesh with all its affections crucified. I discovered then that I cared a good deal for other people’s opinion, and lived a great deal for my own glory.

But at length, in August last, I was led to trust the Lord to save me to the uttermost from all sin, and to take away all desires to live for anything else but His glory. I saw from Ephesians iii. 17; Revelation iii. 20; and John xiv. 23 (all of which are addressed to the Lord’s children) that there was a coming of the King Himself to reign in the cleansed hearts of His children.

So I yielded my heart to its rightful King, and He came in, and dwells, and His Kingdom which is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, has since then been established within. I have claimed the promise, ‘Ye shall abide in Him’, and ‘He that abideth in Him sinneth not’. I trusted Him to take away all tendency, disposition, or response to sin, and I believe He has done it, according to His promises.

Since then my life in Christ has been quite different from what it was before. There has been a sense of His continual presence that I had not before, and His presence gives me a joy and peace that I knew little of previously.

 

[Zooey]

I think it depends on what you mean by failing. “No” is an answer. “Later” is an answer. “Not in this lifetime” is an answer. “My strength is made perfect in [your] weakness” (2 Cor 12:9) is an answer.
God never fails. He simply does not give us everything we ask for, at the very second we want it.
This is not a failure. This is simply our Heavenly Father doing what *is *best, not what we *wish *were best…
God bless.

 

[springbreeze]

buzzcut:

Since then my life in Christ has been quite different from what it was before. There has been a sense of His continual presence that I had not before, and His presence gives me a joy and peace that I knew little of previously.

Dear Buzzcut

Thank you for posting this. This is exactly what I had in mind. That submission to the Lord and His indwelling in full obedience to His Will and all loss of attachment to sin and the self, will bring about by the grace of God, prayer that is with the Will of God and prayer that cannot fail, however the Almighty chooses to answer that prayer.

This prayer will never fail.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[4_marks]

Sometimes we believe that we are truly seeking God’s Will when we are, in reality, far from doing so.

I have a brother who is a Jehovah’s Witness Elder. He is convinced that he is doing God’s Will. He despises the Catholic faith and identifies it directly with Satan, the prince of darkness. Many of his prayers have been answered.

When I had left the faith, I became convinced that I was doing God’s Will by becoming an evangelical Protestant Christian. I was truly seeking God’s Will. Many of my prayers were answered.

I also believe that we can be deceived into thinking that God has answered our prayers, when, in fact, He has not. Sometimes things happen by coincidence. Sometimes we pray for things that are contrary to God’s Will and they happen. Sometimes good things happen to us or others for no apparent reason. We call this luck or good fortune.

God’s Will for us is often difficult to embrace. We resist it because it is often highly demanding and we are but products of a Western independent materialistic intellectual culture.

I believed that God called me to the Catholic priesthood. I pursued it for a time, and then abandoned the call. I could have gone with the flow, but I chose not to. I wasn’t prepared to face the life that God was calling me to. In fact, toward the end of my seminary experience, I did everything I could to avoid facing up to it and used every excuse I could find to justify the choice to abandon the call. God answered my prayer and found someone else to take my place. My freewill could not thwart His ultimate plan for His Church or for me. And many of my prayers continue to be answered.