Time traveling prayers

[Frend]

God is not bound by time.

Prayers can be used at any time.

Can you pray for something that already happened to happen the way it did?

Let’s say a few years ago you narrowly avoided a car accident.

Then a few years later you realize this and pray that you will be okay in that accident.

Did your prayer from the future save you from the wreck in the past?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If you already avoided a car accident, then the appropriate response is to thank God for keeping you safe, and humbly ask him to keep protecting you.

Technically, your prayer for protection could be applied by God at any time (past or future). However, his protection of you in the past was NOT dependent on you saying a certain number X of prayers in the future. To say that a prayer in the future saved you in the past while you are on earth is bordering on superstition.

Also, while God is not bound by earthly time, you yourself are bound by earthly time while you’re on earth, so it is more appropriate and logical for you to pray for God’s protection before you encounter some risky situation, and if you are kept safe from harm, to thank God afterwards for the past protection and pray for his continued future protection.

Prayers being “time traveling” is usually applied in the case where you are praying for the soul of a deceased person who is no longer on earth. In that case, both the subject of your prayer and God are outside earthly time and “on God’s time” when you are making the prayer for them.

 

[ChicagoDG]

re: you question, it is possible your prayer in the future caused God to save you in the past, or it’s possible God saved you because it wasn’t his will that you be injured OR simply, you just narrowly missed an accident of your own free will, or by chance.

If people for example pray for those involved in a major tragedy - if God decides to prevent the tragedy because of the prayers and suffering, we wouldn’t know that our prayer answered as it never happened.

Would God do this? Maybe, maybe not. St Padre Pio certainly thought he would though.

In John 8:58, it states that God “exists” before Abraham - not that he “existed” before Abraham:

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM”

 

[phil19034]

God is not bound by time.

Prayers can be used at any time.

Can you pray for something that already happened to happen the way it did?

Let’s say a few years ago you narrowly avoided a car accident.

Then a few years later you realize this and pray that you will be okay in that accident.

Did your prayer from the future save you from the wreck in the past?

I don’t think time travel works that way. What you are describing is a time paradox. Something tells me that God doesn’t use time paradoxes.

A good example of a “time traveling prayer” is something like this:

• Lets’s say you are praying for your grandfather, who died 40 years ago, to get to Heaven instead of being in purgatory. And you have several masses said for him.
• But let’s assume God actually let him into Heaven 30 years ago, based on the prayers you are praying & dedicating today.
• So in my scenero your prayers today, asking God to end your grandfathers time in purgatory, helped your grandfather to get reach Heaven 30 years ago.

That’s how “time traveling prayers” work. You can’t have a time paradox.