"If you ask anything of the Father in my name he will give it to you" Really?

[Gabrielle_S]

I know some pray for things that are not good for them or their salvation, just like my children ask for things that I can’t give them as a good parent, but when people ask for physical healing of a very serious condition and they are good people and are doing everything that Jesus said to do, then why wouldn’t Jesus heal them? Also what interpretation should we take from “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you”
I find it very difficult to trust God when I ask for a healing and it doesn’t seem to be taking place.
Thank you for your answer.
Gabrielle

 

[Scott_Waddell]

Gabrielle S:

I know some pray for things that are not good for them or their salvation, just like my children ask for things that I can’t give them as a good parent, but when people ask for physical healing of a very serious condition and they are good people and are doing everything that Jesus said to do, then why wouldn’t Jesus heal them? Also what interpretation should we take from “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you”
I find it very difficult to trust God when I ask for a healing and it doesn’t seem to be taking place.
Thank you for your answer.
Gabrielle

Remember that God wants our eternal salvation. He can and does heal bodily infirmities, yes, but those people are still going to die eventually. Those one has prayed for healing and didn’t get it should consider the possibility that they died in a state of grace.

Scott

 

[Benadam]

Gabrielle S:

I know some pray for things that are not good for them or their salvation, just like my children ask for things that I can’t give them as a good parent, but when people ask for physical healing of a very serious condition and they are good people and are doing everything that Jesus said to do, then why wouldn’t Jesus heal them? Also what interpretation should we take from “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you”
I find it very difficult to trust God when I ask for a healing and it doesn’t seem to be taking place.
Thank you for your answer.
Gabrielle

Gabrielle,

sometimes it is a great grace to suffer before death. God will preserve the opportunity to prepare a person through the purification that suffering can offer. I would think that the value of that experience would be met with great gratitude considering the unimaginable mercy involved in having died without it. This may not be the primary answer to your question but it could be. God’s miracles are for the whole Church, this may have some part in your answer as well.

 

[TPJCatholic]

Gabrielle,

I am with you on this, similar thoughts have struck my mind more than once in my life–I suspect it has struck the minds of most believers.

I do now firmly believe that suffering has redemptive value, and we can hardly ever see what God is trying to do with us during the days of our sufferings, sometimes later in life we begin to understand why things happened as they did.

Jesus said that we are to pick-up our cross and follow Him daily; He did not say that we get to pick the cross of our own liking or choosing. If it was not truly hard to carry, then it is not really a cross.

I also think that sometimes suffering comes to us not only for the sake of our own soul, but for those around us…just look and Pope John Paul II to see what I mean. God might be using us as intruments to touch those around us and those people may one day walk the streets of heaven because of how they were touched by God through our lives.

 

[Pug]

Sometimes I think about the man who was blind from birth in the gospel of John. I’m sure he and his parents wanted him to be able to see, but he grew up and still didn’t see. The disciples ask Jesus: who sinned that this man was blind? Jesus says at that point that it wasn’t the parents or the blind man, rather it was so that the works of God could be shown.

If we have an infirmity and pray that it be removed, it just may not happen. Of course, it will happen in heaven, but maybe not now.

Look at Lazarus. He could have been cured by Jesus before he died, but instead he died and was in the tomb for days. Jesus raised him up. This was a great sign and many people came to believe in Jesus because of it.

Of course, nothing so exiting will likely happen to you or me. But still, God is doing things, planning things, and we can trust him to deal with it in a proper manner.

 

[Salmon]

If God chooses to use the medical infirmity of a relative to bring about the eternal salvation of someone else, why would you deny Him that?

If someone else may find Christ through the self-sacrifice of caring for that sick person’s needs, why would you deny Him that?

If God chooses to call someone home to Him now in order to preserve them from “backsliding” or some terrible future consequences, why would you deny Him that?

Why do you lose faith or trust in God when His ways aren’t your ways?

Peace in Christ…Salmon

 

[Mickey]

When we pray in all sincerity to God and we ask for something that is seemingly righteous:

Sometimes He says “yes”.

Sometimes He says “no”.

Sometimes He says, “wait”.

God knows what’s best for us. Trust Him.

 

[Exporter]

Gabrielle S,
Thanks for this thread.
This thread made me get on my knees and pray for one of my grand daughters. I did ask Almighty God for two simple things and asked in The Name Of His Son Jesus Christ.
Thanks for this thread.

 

[serendipity]

I have problems with this statment beucase it is contradicted. On the one hand it says ask anything and you shall recieve, but in other places we are told we shall recieve if it is according to God’s will and for the good of our souls, meaning of course that we may not have a chance at receiving it at all.

Only God knows ultimately what is good for our souls, because he alone has the full picture and knows the outcome of any event with certainty and how it would effect us considering our weaknesses and depsite our best intentions.

I think of this often when meditating on the sorrowful mysteries (the scourging of the pillar in particular) and during the Way of the Cross (most often during the carring the cross, stripping of the garments, and death sequence. During these reflections, I often pray to God to purge me of any dreams or ambition that are not in conformance to his will and to give me greater insight so that only his will for me is my ambition. That I would have a better idea of what exactly is my cross to carry, focus on praying for help with that and that hopefully any other ambitions in me that complicate that objective (and make me more prone to falling in frustration) will die in me. We have such a finite time to pray and act on this planet that I don’t want to waste my opportunities with futile actions.