What's the point of praying if it never changes a bad situation?

[Charybdis]

Patrick, God Bless You! You’ve taken the first step into God’s world. You begiin your search by questioning and that’s a good thing.

However, you seem to have a strange concept of prayer given the examples you mentioned. Prayer is not some divine rabbits foot that if you are in pain, you magically get healed right on the spot or vanish from a spot where you’re getting injured by others. It’s not that simple.

We as humans have free will, that means we can do all sorts of nasty things to each other. That is something that God gave to us because if not, then we would not be free to choose Him, we would be forced to choose Him. Would you want that instead? How happy would you be then? Think about that for a moment.

However, God gave us a guide to navigate through all the nastiness of this world, it’s called His Church! That is why Jesus chose men and gave them the authority to loose and bind sins on earth. No, no one but God determines who goes to Hell and such, and even then, God doesn’t send anyone to hell, they do it themselves by the choices they make. It’s sort of like school. I’m a college professor and when I give my students an exam and they do poorly on it, I tell them that I didn’t give them that grade, that’s the grade they gave to themselves by not studying properly, etc. I gave them the lecture, the classtime, the information to do well for themselves, but if they threw all that away, I did’nt give them that bad grade, they gave it to themselves.

So it is sort of, with God. He gives us the guide, he gives us the church, he lets us know through revealed scripture, what He wants us to do and how we should do it. The rest is now up to us to form our lives and conscience to that plan. That’s what we mean by “God’s will.” God’s will is what is best for us, but when we choose to reject that, all sorts of bad things can happen. That’s also not to say that bad things happen to good people, this board is full of them, myself included. But what’s done is done, we only have today. We only have this very moment. What are you going to do about it now?

I’ve always liked the thought that God comes knocking on our door asking us to follow Him, but He will never break it down. The response must come from us. We must get up and open that door and then invite Him in or follow Him outside.

Don’t shun the church. It is the pillar and bulwark of the truth. Jesus founded a church. Jesus was all about communion with others. Helping others. Saving others. We were not given direction by ourselves. To be in communion with God it to be in communion with others. We can’t do it by ourselves. How will we ever learn anything by ourselves without being taught by those with authority. As Catholics, we believe that authority lies with the Catholic Church.

the main thing, though, is you must be taught correctly and with love. It seems you got a lot of that Catholic guilt by your parents. There is a rhyme and reason to all that the church teaches, but you must have the truth and not some watered down version. Only then, can we form our cosciences properly and fully embrace God and his gifts to us.

Sorry I blabbered. Again, God Bless you and I will pray for you!

 

[patrick20]

I must say that I don’t feel that I will ever choose any religion to stay with including catholic. I’m going with what I feel inside on this. Religion is not needed in order for me to “know”. I know this is right and I know I have gotten a taste of what is beyond. This is the way it will be and I will dedicate time to feeling this presence stronger in myself. One post mentioned that I said this presence felt anger. That wouldn’t be correct. I only felt love from it. I was the one that felt anger. Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut and advice.

 

[tonyrey]

I must say that I don’t feel that I will ever choose any religion to stay with including catholic. I’m going with what I feel inside on this. Religion is not needed in order for me to “know”. I know this is right and I know I have gotten a taste of what is beyond. This is the way it will be and I will dedicate time to feeling this presence stronger in myself. One post mentioned that I said this presence felt anger. That wouldn’t be correct. I only felt love from it. I was the one that felt anger. Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut and advice.

Feelings are notoriously deceptive when they have no rational basis. Similarly those who dispense with the accumulated wisdom of humanity are at a colossal disadvantage…

But if you have felt love you are on the right track…

 

[JDaniel]

I must say that I don’t feel that I will ever choose any religion to stay with including catholic. I’m going with what I feel inside on this. Religion is not needed in order for me to “know”. I know this is right and I know I have gotten a taste of what is beyond. This is the way it will be and I will dedicate time to feeling this presence stronger in myself. One post mentioned that I said this presence felt anger. That wouldn’t be correct. I only felt love from it. I was the one that felt anger. Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut and advice.

Patrick:

Based upon your rationales, I’d guess your were fairly young. My guess is that you are at least young enough to live that over. As you grow older, that which seems to you now to be overwhelming will not seem so. I hope you will remain open to that awakening. Remember, the Church didn’t leave you. You will always be welcome back. Also remember, there is nothing you can do to make God love you any less.

God bless,
jd

 

[MartinThinking]

Talking things out with a professional if possible wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Theres something else though. Try to start viewing people in a way which allows you to feel compassion for them.

…look at everyone . search for reasons to feel for others in their perseverence through life. Make it a mission. See if you can make a difference in your over all thoughts towards people…even if its just a thought of sadness for someone…

you know pain. you can help because you know what it is to feel terrible.
theres no way you cannot see it in others. …
its imp…try it …and see if you can feel a little better…

 

[marica_mandic]

I was raised a Catholic, went to a Catholic school, was an alter boy and prayed daily as a kid. I was taught at first that God controlled everything that happened so you needed to pray to God in order to make things better in life. For whatever reason I was sticking the tip of a hunting knife to my chest around the age of 7. I seemed to be curious of stabbing it in or killing myself. So you know something was wrong with me. Being taught that anything that had to do with sex was a sin and you would go to Hell for it I made sure to stay away from that area below the belt. So when I turned 14 and saw that I hadn’t been circumcised completly I thought I was deformed and could never tell anyone because it was a sin to talk of such things. So I started praying and praying and praying for help from God. Nothing happened except for me becoming so suicidal that I had stuck a loaded gun to my head more times then remembered. Praying didn’t help my situation and thanks to what I learned through the Catholic religion I was ashamed to even talk to my parents about it until I was 17. By then I was addicted to drugs, alcohol and was suicidal. 25 years later I’m still struggling with thoughts of suicide. So I “saw the light” in my own way. God wasn’t going to help, prayer did no good and the Catholic religion is the reason my parents were to narrow minded for me to want to tell them of my problem. I know there is a great presence that can be felt but this presence is not going to help you in times of need. Just look at those who have suffered and have been tortured religous or not. Maybe I’m damned to Hell already but I feel I’ve gone beyond this religion, this Pope, the cardinals, archbishops, priest and whoever else that think they know that prayer is the answer to anything to fix anything or make it better. I believed at one time. I believed as much as anyone in the power of prayer. Now I feel like someone standing on the outside watching a bunch of no it alls who have yet to really be tested by this life. Yet I keep it to myself since no one can really understand another without experiencing what they have. Yes it makes me angry to travel back to such thoughts but it is what it is. The very thought of going into a church makes me angry. But who want’s to hear someone cry about how unfair life is right, so just keep it to yourself?

Try to think positive, try to see one small thing that you can do on better . We can send you some nice pictures.

 

[donsnow]

Hi, Patrick,

I’ve read the thread to this point.

Let me share a prayer prescribed by Jesus Christ to His disciples in the Gospel. They were walking along in Jerusalem, and a Pharisee was praying outloud on a street corner with an elegant prayer. One disciple brought this man to Jesus’ attention and Jesus answered, that the Pharisee would have his reward in this life, but a man across the way, at the wailing Wall, who was beating his breast and praying, “God, have mercy of me a sinner.” was justified before the Heavenly Father.
A church variation of this prayer is, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Prayer may sometimes make things better and sometimes may not make things better. But, it can change you. Your childish prayers changed you to the worse, not to the better.
God is merciful and just.
Please don’t blame God for what people bring upon themselves. And, please don’t blame God nor the Church for what has come upon you. As a child, your parents are responsible for what happens to you, not you. As an adult, I have found that I have brought the greater part of my misfortunes upon myself, a few people have added to my misfortunes but most of the people in my life have been a great help. I think that everybody brings a lot of things up themselves and blame God for it. Some of us bring a lot of things upon ourselves and don’t blame God nor other people for it. This is called self-responsibility.

I hope this helps.
The “God have mercy on me a sinner” prayer will certainly not hurt you to pray.
To deny the existance of God or to judge God harshly will hurt you.

Honesty to your doctor and therapist to receive the right medication and counsel will also help. So go look for a good doctor and a good therapist. I went through seven therapists before I found one right for me.

When you can, go and make a good Confession and receive the Holy Eucharist. There is much strength in the Holy Eucharist.

I exercise both a medical help and church help in my life. Both make a good difference.

God loves you,
Don