Unanswered prayers - these can't simply be "God's plan"

[Delphinus]

I am not the only one out there, I’m sure, who remembers long unanswered prayers simply for a chance to get away from abuse for a little bit. Or to be able to see a doctor - not for medicine to work, but simply to have the chance to see someone appropriate to your condition in the first place. I don’t think we can really credibly say these things are part of God’s plan.

I don’t have a hard and fast answer for this, but I can offer a testimony on these lines.

I grew up in a situation like you described here. My parents were horribly abusive in multiple ways. I prayed and prayed for it to stop, but it never did. I didn’t notice that there were a lot of people God sent into my life to help we weather it. I didn’t notice the little reprieves I got from it. I just felt horrible, horrible pain.

But, now, years later…I honestly believe it’s that circumstance that brought me close to God and know him in an intimate way. I didn’t have a fatherly figure, I had a father who terrorized me. Now God is my Father. It was never His will that I was abused. But I believe without doubt or reservation that he allowed it because he knows the deepest and most desperate desire of my heart is intimacy with Him, and he used this horrible situation to give me exactly that when I was able to heal, and even during it. I remember many times on intense and passionate time with Jesus hiding outside in the woods at night so I didn’t have to hear the screaming and to be somewhere where I wouldn’t be found and have anger heaped on me.

If someone were to ask me now…If it was that experience that led me to this intimate place with Him, then I wouldn’t change a single thing. I think God will do that in all bad situations. It’s not his will that a parent abuse their child, or any other circumstance you mention, but I believe that he makes all things right, and from the depths of despair come the brightest lights. Look at the cross as another example. Sometimes he does answer prayer. My husband and I were infertile and now my 1.5 year old son is sleeping in the next room. Sometimes he doesn’t answer it in the way we want because, as it says in John 13:7: "“What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.”

In the situations I personally have faced, what He was doing was far beyond what I could imagine. For those situations I don’t understand (like, frankly, a recent miscarriage where I wasn’t even able to pray for my child…I just had the doctor say at my first ultrasound “There’s not heartbeat” and it was over.) I trust that the same goodness that brought me through the darkness before will do it again.

Makes me think of these songs…really great!!

 

[Bluebright]

There is a better plan, but trust in God is very scarce it seems by the sounds of these examples. The problem is clear. People in these examples sadly are too rooted in the idea that this life is the only one and ends in death. Yes those sufferings, abuse and not getting to see a doctor are horrible but they have immense merit when one considers that this earthly life is but a blink in life eternal and if one trusts in the mercy of God he will provide something for their needs. It may or may not be a doctor and it may or may not be relief from abuse. His grace is always sufficient, we do not need to decide what relieves our sufferings because he will. We must trust in God implicitly and ask him for his will to be done in us. If we copy Jesus prayer in the garden of gethsemane then we wont go wrong. God wants us aligned to his will for our own good. His way is the quickest, easiest way to heaven

 

[DarkLight]

That’s somewhat beside the point here. One, I never found the “greater good” argument persuasive. Some things are evil in such a way that even putting them on the scale like that is wrong. It would be like torturing your child now so they have a great rest of their life - even if you could 100% know it would make the rest of their life wonderful, the mere act of even making the comparison is evil.

But more than that - we are asking untrained children to copy Jesus’s prayer. That is simply an unreasonable expectation. Children who have never been taught anything like that, or have never been given the chance to learn that perspective, can’t make that choice.

 

[DarkLight]

I’m really sorry you went through all that DarkLight.

But you did come through it. Would you consider yourself a stronger person for having survived?

I would not. I’d consider myself to be considerably weaker and heavily impaired in my ability to practice faith and actually do anything for God. I’d consider that all that experience did was weaken and hurt me in ways that can’t be repaired, and that I would be a significantly stronger person if I hadn’t gone through all that. I’d consider that I’m watching other people be able to dive in and follow God and I can’t because there’s always that doubt of “what if you’re wrong this time and you only think you’re following God?” So I can’t feel safe and confident enough that this time I’m actually right and trusting God is the right thing to do, because in this case trusting God (as played out in accordance with the best evidence I had at the time) was exactly the wrong thing to do. And there’s no real way to tell that that isn’t happening again.

 

[Delphinus]

I would not. I’d consider myself to be considerably weaker and heavily impaired in my ability to practice faith and actually do anything for God.

"But in weakness we can do far more for God because it shows His power. I am far weaker for my experiences. I have a thin skin, PTSD, chronic depression and anxiety, and my self-esteem is pretty shattered even still. But then there’s 2 Corinthians 12:9

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. "

 

[CRV]

I really dont know what else to say. I don’t think there is anything I can say that will strengthen you, as I believe this is something you need to find within yourself. There is an old saying and it goes something along the lines of - ‘what doesn’t break us makes us stronger’.

I hope that God will lift you up and encourage you and I hope you don’t allow yourself to sink into despair. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by life, to also question your faith as a result of suffering, to even struggle to see/find where God is/was in all of this. Sometimes there aren’t any answers in this life.

If I’ve understood what you wrote, then you say you can’t follow God because of doubting- a)either yourself, in that you are truly following Gods’ Will for you and b) the fear of what if you’re wrong and only think you are following Him. Which is why you say you don’t feel safe and confident that you are right in your judgements and whether you should place your trust in God again, because what if you are wrong and something bad happens.

Well part of this is being human and accepting that God is not to blame for the choices we make - we are - whether that be the decisions we make based on our poor understanding of what is expected of us to live according to His commands.

I don’t think it is right under these circumstances to blame God for our mistakes, for our faulty reasonings etc.

I’ll use the example of a battered wife, someone I knew. The wife stayed with the abusive husband for 30 or more years of marriage and took numerous beatings, suffered emotional, psychological and spiritual abuse from her spouse. But she meant her vows when she took them and as the Catholic Church forbids divorce, she stayed. She was being faithful to her vows and to God and to her Churchs’ teaching. Did she suffer? Yes, horribly. She also witnessed her children being abused.

Why didn’t she leave you ask? Partly because of the above, partly because back then there was no social support either from doctors, police, church, family/friends and definitely no financial aid. So she took up her cross and did her best to carry it, knowing that Jesus was there beside her. May they both rest in peace.

continued below-

 

[CRV]

continued -
Look to Jesus on the cross. Look to His suffering in the Agony in the Garden - Luke 22:42 “Saying: Father, if thou wilt, remove this chalice from me: but yet not my will, but thine be done.” He accepted what was to befall Him as this was His Fathers’ plan for our salvation and His Will was united to His Fathers’ Will.

Our suffering if united to Jesus’ sufferings and offered to God, then have meaning as God uses the merits of this for the salvation of souls - perhaps our own or others.

We were never promised a pain free, trial free, suffering free, happy life in this world. Suffering is part of this life. Is it easy? No. Is it just? Again, no. Though there are others who suffer greatly compared to ours.

It can be a temptation to dwell on part hurts, instead of letting them go. Dwelling on them only strengthens their hold on us, continues to imprison us, makes us bitter and negative and non-trusting of others.

I urge you to take that leap of Faith and trust God. Whilst He will do what He can to keep you safe - He will not override your free choices and decisions. So it is also up to you to take the time to truly get to know someone else and not rush into relationships, to pray for guidance, and then make the best decisions we can. But if we make a poor decision, then the fault is ours and not Gods. Did the person ‘change’ after getting into a relationship - perhaps, or perhaps we did not wish to see what was truly there, or perhaps brushed off any warning signs we may have seen.

May I recommend reading The Book of Confidence by Raymond de Saint-Laurent or The Book of Confidence (old version) both of which you can read online.

 

[drac16]

Imagine an ant walking across a carpet. To the ant, the carpet just seems like a set of random colors, with no real design involved. To someone who is bigger, like us humans, we see the intricate designs on the carpet. We see the beautiful design and pictures in the carpet. None of it looks random or out of place.

In a similar way, it looks like a bunch of chaos and entropy in your life, but from God’s perspective, He can see how your life is intricately woven. From your perspective it seems to be mere entropy, but He can see everything that has happened, and that which will happen and He has woven your life. He is the one who created the carpet, so isn’t He more knowledgeable than us who are mere ants?

 

[DarkLight]

If I’ve understood what you wrote, then you say you can’t follow God because of doubting- a)either yourself, in that you are truly following Gods’ Will for you and b) the fear of what if you’re wrong and only think you are following Him. Which is why you say you don’t feel safe and confident that you are right in your judgements and whether you should place your trust in God again, because what if you are wrong and something bad happens.

Well part of this is being human and accepting that God is not to blame for the choices we make - we are - whether that be the decisions we make based on our poor understanding of what is expected of us to live according to His commands.

I think this is where the catch is. We can’t be to blame in situations like this, because it’s fundamentally an inculpable epistemic defect rather than a moral one. I can say both that I made the best decision to follow God at the time given the evidence that I had, and that what I did was not in fact following God. Again, we are looking from the perspective of someone who was very young and very sheltered, and who had been brought up in a way to expect that behavior from men (homeschooled and in a very conservative and isolated church).

I’ve seen another poster on here refer to it as the “hockey goalie” model of dating - where women are told to expect that it’s their responsibility to continually deflect the sexual advances of their partners until they’re finally rewarded with marriage. Someone who’s been trained like that, and told that “date rape” is feminist nonsense to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, can’t be expected to see the red flags. As far as I knew that was just how men acted and it was my job as a woman to stay pure enough in my dress and actions that it didn’t go any further. The actions I took were a free choice in one sense, but I had never been in a position to get the information needed to make a better choice.

That’s where I find the concept of free will unhelpful. If I put someone in a hall with 100 identical doors and tell them to open the one that leads to the outside, it would make no sense to say that they’re to blame for not getting out when they don’t. Similarly if the door to outside is painted green, but the doors are all different colors and no one tells them that the door to the outside is the green one.

 

[DarkLight]

In a similar way, it looks like a bunch of chaos and entropy in your life, but from God’s perspective, He can see how your life is intricately woven. From your perspective it seems to be mere entropy, but He can see everything that has happened, and that which will happen and He has woven your life. He is the one who created the carpet, so isn’t He more knowledgeable than us who are mere ants?

The thing is from my perspective it’s not “mere entropy” but cruel apathy. If I stepped on the ant, it would not matter one bit what I knew or intended. I find the mere idea that certain acts could be weighed against any greater good fundamentally undermines any idea of treating humans as having dignity and meaning. It’s not that the good couldn’t be greater, but that the very method of balancing certain evils against goods is the sort of utilitarian reasoning that is why in other situations we reject utilitarianism as inherently against the value of human beings.

 

[Vico]

…

The thing is from my perspective it’s not “mere entropy” but cruel apathy. … the very method of balancing certain evils against goods is the sort of utilitarian reasoning that is why in other situations we reject utilitarianism as inherently against the value of human beings.

Without free will there could be no expression of charity and then it would not be logically possible for persons to be partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.

A summary is in the Catechism:

1993 Justification establishes cooperation between God’s grace and man’s freedom. On man’s part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent:

When God touches man’s heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God’s grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God’s sight.42

1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor , the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46

302 Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created “in a state of journeying” ( in statu viae ) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call “divine providence” the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection:

By his providence God protects and governs all things which he has made, “reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well”. For “all are open and laid bare to his eyes”, even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of creatures.161

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:

For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.177

 

[DarkLight]

Without free will there could be no expression of charity and then it would not be logically possible for persons to be partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.

I would encourage you to read some of my previous posts talking about free will.

I do not question that others had free will. I question that my “free will” had any real meaning in a world where I was denied the information I would have needed to make the right choice. And I question what part of free will means that someone who prays and genuinely seeks the answer would gain nothing from that prayer except false guilt, because of things that are entirely out of their control.

 

[CRV]

I can say both that I made the best decision to follow God at the time given the evidence that I had,

This is what each of us do everyday in any situation.

we are looking from the perspective of someone who was very young and very sheltered, and who had been brought up in a way to expect that behavior from men

Yes, as were a lot of others including those who were not homeschooled. Depends on the homelife really, not whether they were homeschooled, as that scenario happened to others who attended public and private schools.

Whilst I believe both men and woman should be mindful of maintaining their own chasitity as well as the chastity of those they are seriously dating - it goes both ways. But you only have to look at hollywood - marilyn monroe as an example of women being promoted as sex objects, to see the flow on to men in general, to pornography and even just the culture itself, to see how women have been at a disadvantage in the area of relationships with men.

Then as now, sadly, there are still some who say that the woman must have done something to lure the man or encouraged him etc etc. Whilst that may be the case in some situations, it nevertheless does not excuse the mans behavior. Rape is rape. Rape happens in marriage too, yet because it is within marriage there are some people who are ok with that judging by the comments I’ve read online (not here) over the years.

As far as I knew that was just how men acted

A lot of women also did think the same way - sadly.

it was my job as a woman to stay pure enough in my dress and actions that it didn’t go any further.

that was also a pretty common expectation, but which again, I think also applies to men. Sadly, society is sex-obsessed, but it is dolled up as being luved-up where it really is just unbridled lust - I’m thinking of some tv shows .

ok, whilst I get the point you are making in your last paragraph, I would like to ask, did you not at anytime in this abusive relationship not think “this is wrong/how can this be right?”

continued below:-

 

[CRV]

continued:-

So whilst you may have decided to stay in the abusive relationship believing that was what God willed for you, you still did you best to follow His Will as you understood it to be at that time. I assume you thought that you had no choice to stay because to your knowledge at that time, you honestly believed that by staying you were following God’s Will. God knows this, accepts your efforts and sufferings in uniting your will to His, He knows you were trying to follow Him and all this will be awarded to you at your particular judgement.

But I trust you are no longer in that relationship. You’ve moved on. So use the experience and knowledge you now have to be more prudent in relationships and in decisions you make regarding your safety and health.

We trust God to take care of our needs and He does. But it is also up to us to use our common sense in matters. But He permits these things for reasons we may not understand in this life, but will in the next. Hopefully part of the good coming from this is that you are now wiser. God permits these trials for His reasons. But that doesn’t relieve us of our responsibility in decisions in life. God is not someone who is going to micromanage every aspect of our lives - He gives us the freedom to live it ourselves.

But instead of looking back as Lots wife did, can you not see it is better that you look forward? You still chose to enter into that relationship, so you learn from this experience, and are more circumspect in choosing partner in the future. You learn wisdom.

Read the book of Job and all that God permitted him to suffer yet he did not turn against God. Read Genesis 37 about Joseph being sold by his brothers and all that happened to him yet he remained faithful to God.

Why Does God Let Bad Things Happen

Even If You Can’t Trust Anyone, You Can Still Trust God

The choice you now have to make is whether to remain stuck in indecision or whether to take a leap of Faith and resume your relationship with Him and trust Him to care for you. Each of us do the best we can each day, with what we have, where we are, in whatever circumstances we are in.

A good (human) father is not going to keep their child in a bubble -if they did then they wouldn’t get to experience life, nor learn how to be independent, nor learn how to get back up when life knocks them down.

I hope you find peace.

 

[DarkLight]

ok, whilst I get the point you are making in your last paragraph, I would like to ask, did you not at anytime in this abusive relationship not think “this is wrong/how can this be right?”

I really didn’t, honestly. I don’t think I had any concept of abuse other than overt physical violence.

Looking back is forward, sometimes. I guarantee I’m not the only one with these questions. Most people don’t seek the answers at all, they just never come back to a church. I also do actually have a good deal of philosophy training. We shouldn’t leave questions unasked simply because they are difficult. Sometimes trusting God is trusting that He gave us reason to use and that there are answers.

 

[Vico]

Vico:

Without free will there could be no expression of charity and then it would not be logically possible for persons to be partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.

I would encourage you to read some of my previous posts talking about free will.

I do not question that others had free will. I question that my “free will” had any real meaning in a world where I was denied the information I would have needed to make the right choice. And I question what part of free will means that someone who prays and genuinely seeks the answer would gain nothing from that prayer except false guilt, because of things that are entirely out of their control.

Some people are raised in an environment (with or without baptism) that gives scandal and then develop sinful habits. In that case the conscience, written in our hearts, may be or become obscured. God does give actual graces to those that pray for help and these are defined as “God’s interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification” (Catechism 2000).

 

[ASC]

Have you ever read any of those time travel disaster books? Or seen a movie like Back to the Future, where one tiny action sets off an enormous change of events? You cannot see beyond the first small hill, which you struggle over, and fall, and beg God to level it, that you may walk. What you cannot see is that that hill is a gateway to the easy path through the mountains beyond. When you are able to believe that this nearly decimating challenge is a link to success that cannot be removed, you will be able to, with the strength of the prayer “Jesus, I trust in you,” pull yourself to your feet and continue towards the light.

 

[Neithan]

Suppose someone does not have enough information to make the right choice in a situation. God could intervene and enlighten them; but suppose God knows that person would then make wrong choices, for whatever reason. So God does not intervene, and that person’ suffers, but their personal guilt is mitigated. God knows that at a later time, that person’s conscience will be informed, and they will then use their free will to make better choices. Their free will has meaning in the whole of their life.

Utilitarianism is rejected because the end does not justify the means — the end cannot be good if it is the result of an evil act — and because we lack sufficient knowledge of the consequences of our actions to reliably bring about a greater good, or to measure it (total, average or minimum utility). Since God is pure act (in the Thomistic view), the end and the means are one and the same, and his knowledge is always sufficient.

 

[Bluebright]

It’s not really… but you are entitled to your viewpoint. As you say it’s not persuasive to you, but that doesnt make it wrong or beside the point. The fact is, life is more than just conception until death, well for a Catholic anyway (even for other Christians). This life until death is a short time of which their are many references in the Bible. God does provide sufficient grace for us, that is for certain as God told St Paul this and God is not a liar. This does not mean that we will think it sufficient only that it is sufficient for we are too little to know our own needs, like a baby.

I am very very sorry about what happened to you and that you were so badly advised and did not find prayer a comfort. Prayer can be difficult when one is wounded and it is very difficult to get healing if one does not have the trust to ask God for the trust to heal us.

I mean no offence but clearly I wasnt asking wounded children to be praying this, I was actually speaking to the topic poster (you). We do have intercessory prayer for those unable or uneducated in prayer. The church has a universal prayer bank specifically for this purpose and millions of people, especially the sick and infirm, but not only those, also religious of course, fill it with prayers daily. Some nuns, spend many hours praying for a specific causes, say those who have left the church, or priests etc. or even those who have no one to pray for them. Even in our churches we pray for these sorts of things daily and have masses said for them. These children would fall into that category.

Also unanswered prayers can be when God is waiting for the person to use free will and make their own choice. He is respectful of free will and wont force the issues either way. His grace is there for the choice to be made and then the person is to chose His will or not.

 

[DarkLight]

Also unanswered prayers can be when God is waiting for the person to use free will and make their own choice. He is respectful of free will and wont force the issues either way. His grace is there for the choice to be made and then the person is to chose His will or not.

In my experience more people do harm because they intend well and do not know what to do, than people who intend to do evil. How is that free will? I’d refer to my earlier example - free will seems rather like placing someone in a hallway with doors that they’ve never seen, and then telling them it’s they’re responsibility to pick the one that lets them out. They can make a choice, in a sense, yes. But that choice isn’t a reflection of free will in any serious way.

As far as the first, perhaps my view is tainted by years of being told as a child that I was too little to know what was good for me. And as I grew, I learned that I did know what was good for me. I had always known. But “little children don’t know what’s good for them” was the cover and excuse for abusers. And it was the reason for those who could have done something to stay out.

People had created a world where kids like me were considered acceptable losses in the name of family values. We were the unwilling sacrifices for an overall “better world.” The world of family values and parental authority which supported isolation and discouraged adults from taking too much interest in children not their own, unless approved of by the parents. The overall benefits are seen as worth it.

Then we justify God in all those same words that we’ve just been using to justify abusers.