Why does God answer prayer?

[Kronk]

So I’m just gonna start off by saying I’m quite sick at the moment and have had only 4 hours of sleep so if I’m not so coherent that would be why

So, my questions aren’t really to do with why God answers prayers in general, he loves us of course, but I’m more unsure about it related to praying for other people or ourselves to help us in specific situations (eg. Praying for people affected by hurricanes or tsunamis, or unfair treatment by higher-ups, etc.).

As usual I can’t really put into words why I am unsure, like I can say “well why not?” and I can’t come up with reasoning, but that doesn’t exactly give me any solid ground on this subject.

So, main points of doubt I find easier to just out in dot-point format:

• Why does God help people in natural disasters if he permitted them to happen?
• Why does God help people only from our prayers? What about the others?
• With regards to free will, how does intervening to save/help not violate it?
• Why does he sometimes not respond and help those whose lives are in danger when we pray for them?

Side-question: Why does God permit things to test us? Surely he would know the answer and I get the “hardening of steel” analogy of it but I still don’t really understand why he allows the dangers to our faith?

Of course none of these are like “faith or atheist” questions, in fact I enjoy a more hardcore version of God than what I grew up thinking, so having hard questions corrected, even if I don’t like the answer, I think is good for reflection.

Many thanks as well y’all, you’ve all been amazing help, according to the priest that’s helping me convert, if all goes well my baptism should happen this month!

 

[fhansen]

Answered prayer has more to do with building faith, for those who exercise it o begin with by praying, then about the cure or healing or answer in any case because those are generally temporary no matter what. Even Lazarus ended up dying-again. God’s purpose is to build and advance His kingdom, which ultimately is not of this earth.

 

[Vico]

…

• Why does God help people in natural disasters if he permitted them to happen?
• Why does God help people only from our prayers? What about the others?
• With regards to free will, how does intervening to save/help not violate it?
• Why does he sometimes not respond and help those whose lives are in danger when we pray for them?
  …Why does God permit things to test us?

How can you say that God does not respond? God uses his providence, which includes the use of foreknowledge.

Catechism

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

306 God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures’ co-operation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God’s greatness and goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of co-operating in the accomplishment of his plan.

Tests

1264 Yet certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death, and such frailties inherent in life as weaknesses of character, and so on, as well as an inclination to sin that Tradition calls concupiscence, or metaphorically, “the tinder for sin” (fomes peccati); since concupiscence “is left for us to wrestle with, it cannot harm those who do not consent but manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ.”[66] Indeed, “an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.”[67]

1730 God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. "God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."26

Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.27

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The short answer to all of your questions is that life is a learning experience where we are supposed to learn how to be closer to God. I think many things God does can be seen as lessons, and not just lessons for one person but in the case of something big like a disaster, for many people at a time, and on many different subjects.

As for why sometimes God lets people die rather than save the life of every one, once we stop our human habit of thinking of death as an awful, terrible thing to avoid at all costs, and see it as a necessary transition to our next life with God, then we stop asking the question and just accept that it was some people’s time to go.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Always remember that in our faith, the spiritual is more important than the physical.
So, we’re all going to die, either by illness or accident. We might have close calls and near misses, but in the end we are all going to die.
The important thing is that we are right with God, and spirituality is the work of a lifetime.

My particular interpretation is that if you are saved from a natural disaster, it’s not for your own benefit, but so you can draw closer to God and serve your fellow man better.

Example: Imaculee Ilibageza is a woman who survived the Rwandan genocide. She lost most of her family, most of her friends and relatives. She came close to being killed several times.
While in hiding from the enemy, she prayed constantly, for her side, for the the enemy to be converted, for the grace to forgive and for her own life.
And she did survive.
Were her prayers “better” or “holier” than the devout people who were massacred? Probably not. But she decided there had been a purpose for her being spared and she now lectures and writes about topics of God and forgiveness.

 

[Dan_Defender]

Why does God permit things to test us?

So that we can grow spiritually and overcome the world like Jesus did.