Is it wrong that I don't pray for things?

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pollynova

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I was reading through this thread forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=893169 and I didn’t want to go off topic, so I’m starting a new one.

I know most people pray for things. I’m not talking about people who pray to win the lottery or something like that. I talking about how people will say a prayer that they’ll get the job they want, or help with an illness, or things like that. I don’t do that. I used to, but now I don’t, mostly because I never had any of those prayers answered. I reasoned that it was because I wanted God to do my will instead of His, and that He obviously knows better than I do, so why should I try to change His mind? When I pray now, I say thanks for the good things and help with the bad things. I pray for sick people, not to be healed, but just for God to take care of them. It’s not that I doubt that God could save them, I just think that He’ll do what He wants, regardless of what I have to say.
 
One good prayer I like to say is: Mary, please make your intentions in this matter come true. Another good prayer I like to say is: Lord, if it would please you, please grant that…; or Lord, Thy Will be done, not mine. God bless you.
 
First, God does always answer our prayers, but usually not in the way we expect, when we expect or necessarily with a yes answer.

I usually pray the Our Father for people so I am simply handing over their needs to God. I have asked for things like financial help, help finding a job or for healing, and sometimes the answers seem to be tailor made, while other times they seem to be a resounding no. I have also learned that what I think may be good may not be so, as a result of some of those “NO” answers.

I think as long as we are trying to pray and trying to seek God in our lives we are doing as well as we can. In fact, I think the hardest prayers are those in which we literally leave the choice up to God, knowing full well that the answer may not make us happy.

As a young girl around 7 years of age, our cat became very ill because someone drained their radiator in the gutter. My mom had to take him to the vet and she told us that our cat might not make it. I wanted him to live with all my might, but still, that night I asked God to do what was best for our kitty, not necessarily what I wanted. Our kitty died from liver failure as a result of that poisoning.

I let God decide, and it was a painful answer. Still I knew it was the right answer. It is a challenge to accept answers we don’t like. I think we make it harder by insisting God is not answering us because we get an answer we don’t like. Try figuring out why the answers you have received so far are better than the one’s you wished for.
 
pollynova said:
I was reading through this thread forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=893169 and I didn’t want to go off topic, so I’m starting a new one.

I know most people pray for things. I’m not talking about people who pray to win the lottery or something like that. I talking about how people will say a prayer that they’ll get the job they want, or help with an illness, or things like that. I don’t do that. I used to, but now I don’t, mostly because I never had any of those prayers answered. I reasoned that it was because I wanted God to do my will instead of His, and that He obviously knows better than I do, so why should I try to change His mind? When I pray now, I say thanks for the good things and help with the bad things. I pray for sick people, not to be healed, but just for God to take care of them. It’s not that I doubt that God could save them, I just think that He’ll do what He wants, regardless of what I have to say.
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Whatever is lawful (God’s law, not US or State laws) to have should be prayed for. Do I want to win the lottery so I have no more need of anyone (including God) for happiness? If the answer is yes, I do not pray for it. Do I want to have a job so that I can make use of the talents God gave me to serve my neighbor and to be the place I find income to support my family? If the answer is Yes, then I must pray for it. This is not to change God’s mind, but to participate in His plan for me, and for me to know God’s mind.

If you have a child, you want that this child expresses its desires to you rather than fending for itself with no word to you that it has any wants. “I want an ice cream cone; would you buy me one?”… You answer “No; it is almost dinner time”. That child is learning to reason like you reason, by asking, and by being answered. And it is learning to know you, what is important to you.

We have to ask for everything. When we receive what was requested, we have not only what was requested, but we also have an increased knowledge of our Lord. When we don’t receive it, we also learn about Him and what his goal for us is. And we gain a respect for Him, that he “leads us in paths of righteousness for the sake of his Name” which Name he has marked us with.

John Martin
 
God answers our prayer to what would make us happy and guide us to the road we are supposed to follow Jesus. You might think he never answered any of your prayers but he might have answered you in a different way. One thing I learned since I returned to church that God is answering my prayers but in his own time and in his own way. When I ask something of him, I imagine two options. An option that my prayer is responded in a certain way, and an option where I don’t get what I want, not because he didn’t hear me, but because in his own wisdom he knows what’s better for me. And when you truly give your will to him saying Your will father, not mine, and when you truly mean it, You get a sense of peace, because you know that even if you don’t get what you want you trust that God will provide in another way. And you know what? every time God answers my prayer, it’s always in His Own Way, it’s almost never the way I imagined my option to be!

But it is also right of you to think his will comes first, but it doesn’t mean that he wont give you something you want. He is a father, and a father wants to give his children everything that he knows will make them happy.

God bless 🙂
 
Thank you all for your responses. I do know that God answers all prayers, just not always how we’d like. But sometimes when I would pray for something, it took the worst turn imaginable so I think that God was telling me that I need to just… I don’t know the right way to phrase this and it’s going to come out wrong, but He was telling me I needed to mind my own business or something. I know in the bible it talks about what father would hand his child a stone when he asks for bread. But many times I’ve asked for bread and it was like I got smacked in the face with a stone. So maybe it’s just in my case, but I really think I’m just supposed to accept what happens to me, rather than try to change anything with prayer.
 
pollynova said:
Thank you all for your responses. I do know that God answers all prayers, just not always how we’d like. But sometimes when I would pray for something, it took the worst turn imaginable so I think that God was telling me that I need to just… I don’t know the right way to phrase this and it’s going to come out wrong, but He was telling me I needed to mind my own business or something. I know in the bible it talks about what father would hand his child a stone when he asks for bread. But many times I’ve asked for bread and it was like I got smacked in the face with a stone. So maybe it’s just in my case, but I really think I’m just supposed to accept what happens to me, rather than try to change anything with prayer.
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It has been that way with me as well. However, I would not be Catholic today if he gave me what I asked. Instead he did the opposite. The drastically opposite. And today I am in a career I did not choose (very successfully, though) and in a Church I once would have denounced (being a Lutheran), and in a marriage that would never have happened if I had been given my prayers (which were “good prayers” and desires).

We can see, when looking back, how we are glad God held off on what we asked for, but not at the time it is happening. I am 25 years beyond the original prayers that were not granted. But I am extremely glad and thankful they were not granted. As good as they might have been, they nowhere match the goodness I have received, especially being Catholic. Enough said.

John Martin
 
pollynova said:
I know most people pray for things. I’m not talking about people who pray to win the lottery or something like that. I talking about how people will say a prayer that they’ll get the job they want, or help with an illness, or things like that. I don’t do that. I used to, but now I don’t, mostly because I never had any of those prayers answered. I reasoned that it was because I wanted God to do my will instead of His, and that He obviously knows better than I do, so why should I try to change His mind? When I pray now, I say thanks for the good things and help with the bad things. I pray for sick people, not to be healed, but just for God to take care of them. It’s not that I doubt that God could save them, I just think that He’ll do what He wants, regardless of what I have to say.
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It’s not wrong - as long as you’re doing it to get closer to God rather than to avoid having your faith tested. Pray for God’s will to be done but also for the grace to perceive God’s hand in your life answering your prayers. I often pray in an open-ended fashion (e.g. “help so and so” rather than “cure so and so’s cancer”). I find this is better than trying to direct God to a specific thing because God often has another plan or a much better solution to the situation than one we can devise. Many spiritual directors also advise praying in this way.
 
Back when the Israelites were disobedient, Moses pleaded with God not to destroy them. Abraham asked God to allow him to find good men in Sodom.

If someone asks me to pray for something that was reasonable, I’m going to plead on their behalf. If it’s their health or needing a job to support themselves or their family, I’m going to ask. None of us have any choice but to accept God’s will but if you have access to God (through prayer), it doesn’t hurt to ask.
 
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