Praying with wrong intentions

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DL82

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Three occasions in my life:

The first time, I began offering up an hour of lectio divina to make me better prepared for my fiancee’s arrival in the UK. Instead, about half way through the 40 days I was offering this up, I had an overwhealming sense of the need for total obedience to the teaching of the Church. This led to rifts with my fiancee, and not at all what I had expected.

The second time, I began visiting a chapel to St Joseph and praying for success with the immigration process in order to get married. Instead, I got a strong sense that I had a professional vocation to study as well as my vocation to get married. In the end, the tensions I had been praying about didn’t get resolved, and my fiancee ended up breaking up with me.

The third time, I have been praying the LOTH and fasting through Advent, offered up to turn my heart back to make me a better potential future husband, and to turn my ex-fiancee’s heart back to mine. Again, half way through, the opportunity to study for the next 4 years in a supportive Catholic environment to fulfil the vocation to policy studies I am now feeling.

Does anyone else have this experience of finding that God answers totally different prayers to the ones you actually ask Him to?
 
DL82 said:
Does anyone else have this experience of finding that God answers totally different prayers to the ones you actually ask Him to?
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pretty much standard procedure for my prayer life.
 
I think that is usually the result. Especially if you are praying “but they will be done” along side of whatever you are asking for. What I have noticed is that the original prayer request is answered later or in a different way than I had planned. :rolleyes: You’d like I would have figured out by now that I’m not the one running the universe!
 
I don’t know how many had I done so far throughout my entire life, probably a lot, but so far I know I had prayed for one big wrong intention. God answered to my intention in a way that He tells me I am not up to this task yet.

It is a blessing to know when we pray for the wrong intention; it is a way to learn how to follow God’s will with humility.
 
DL82 said:
Does anyone else have this experience of finding that God answers totally different prayers to the ones you actually ask Him to?
Click to expand...
Oh my goodness, more often than not! That’s when I realize His love for me, that He doesn’t respond as I would like. Of course, sometimes that realization hits me much later. When I see how awful it would have been if He had answered my prayer as I wanted it’s a tremendous relief knowing that He gives us what is good for us, not what we want.

I’m trying to learn to pray for His will, not mine. A very good priest here in Denver suggested I pray Blessed Charles de Foucault’s prayer of abandonement in order to get the grace to desire God’s will for me. The prayer is pasted below. God bless and Merry Christmas!

Prayer of Abandonement
Father, I abandon myself into your hands
Do with me what you will
Whatever you do, I thank you
I am ready for all, I accept all
Let your will be done in me and in all your creatures.
I ask no more than this, Oh Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul with all the love of my
heart.
For I so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your
hands.
With boundless confidence, for you are my father.
Amen.
 
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