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Look, the thread topic is Prayers. It is the Religion and Spirituality forum. If discussion of prayers being answered offends one, then it is best to avoid it. It does not make any sense to post here and ask everyone to shut the boasting up. How stating ones experience in a forum such as this becomes boasting is in the individual’s perception. Expressing joy that one’s prayer was answered is a normal expression.
The lack of awareness is in the complaining of lack of awareness.
The thread topic is actually answered prayer vs. coincidence, but no one has really addressed that since the first post, so it drifted into a general prayer topic. One thing for sure, it is certainly not about compassion and kindness, which too many of us mistakenly believe should go hand-in-hand with spirituality. So yes, it's gone off topic, but perhaps the reminder that those who consider themselves the most spiritual are not necessarily those with the most compassion for their fellow humans, was necessary to hear, painful as it might be to have to be reminded of that.
So then, let's move back to the topic. Perhaps someone has a story about how what appears to be a coincidence was an answer to a prayer, or vice versa!
Again, not true for everyone. So many have cried out for God to come to them and gotten crickets, so they conclude that either God does not exist, or there is something about them that God just doesn't like. Concluding that God must not exist is the logical and less painful response.
Some posting in this thread will readily agree not true, because there is no such thing as truth...
I'll agree with you to a point, because what "so many" will do when it comes to their beliefs about God can be just about anything. Mink, for example, has a different explanation. When good things happen, we can give God credit, but when bad things happen, it's just a question of figuring out why. Sometimes Mink has been able. Sometimes not. Simple as that and certainly not because "there is something about them that God just doesn't like."
That, however, is the sort of rationale that too many religious people seem to apply toward people who experience hardship or "bad luck." Must be some sort of judgement by God that has them getting what they deserve.
Again, anything goes when it comes to this sort of thing! What's true or not is of no matter...
For me, however, the truth DOES exist and the truth DOES matter.
I feel like God doesn't just want to be loved for doing things for us and despised when He doesn't. Everybody wants to be loved just because they are who they are.
I don't say this lightly. I don't say it as anyone who has led a charmed life. If I told one-tenth of the horrific things that happened to me as a child I guarantee more than a few here would throw up. Even my husband doesn't know a huge chunk of it because I don't want to put it on his shoulders. Just saying.
Was God there...did He ignore me...I don't know. He seems to have saved me from literal death more than once, I can say that. As horrific as things were, I can't know that they wouldn't have been worse had God not been there. I don't want to just scream at Him for not giving me the life I saw other little girls lead. I want to thank Him for the many scrapes I got through to be where I am today.
Look, the thread topic is Prayers. It is the Religion and Spirituality forum. If discussion of prayers being answered offends one, then it is best to avoid it. It does not make any sense to post here and ask everyone to shut the boasting up. How stating ones experience in a forum such as this becomes boasting is in the individual’s perception. Expressing joy that one’s prayer was answered is a normal expression.
The lack of awareness is in the complaining of lack of awareness.
Is awareness the same thing as being woke? Wokeness?
I feel like God doesn't just want to be loved for doing things for us and despised when He doesn't. Everybody wants to be loved get just because they are who they are.
I don't say this lightly. I don't say it as anyone who has led a charmed life. If I told it one-tenth of the horrific things that happened to me as a child I guarantee more than a few here would throw up. Even my husband doesn't know a huge chunk of it because I don't want to put it on his shoulders. Just saying.
Was God there...did He ignore me...I don't know. He seems to have saved me from literal death more than once, I can say that. As horrific as things were, I can't know that they wouldn't have been worse had God not been there. I don't want to just scream at Him for not giving me the life I saw other little girls lead. I want to thank Him for the many scrapes I got through to be where I am today.
I have a story, and it might not be accepted as on topic because some would not consider this a form of prayer, since there was no deity involved, but I will tell it anyway.
Some years ago, I read a small book on awakening your intuition. The author belonged to a church and so seemed to have a connection with Christianity, but it was not an overtly religious book. Basically the book boiled down to exercises to be used in tapping into one's own natural intuition to help with guidance and making decisions.
It was a hot day and I had left work early to attend an event at the end of my daughter's school day. I commuted to NYC by train from the NJ suburbs, and the train and bus schedules in the middle of the day are not as frequent as they are during rush hour.
I got off the train in early afternoon. The heat was terrible. The school was a two-and-a-half mile walk in one direction. About a ten-minute walk in the other direction was a bus stop where I knew I could get a bus to near the school, but I did not know the schedule, and of course this was pre-smart-phone.
So I had a dilemma. Should I just walk to the school in the heat without checking out the bus, or should I go to the bus station and hope that I could get on a bus that would get me to the school in time, thereby risking wasting twenty extra minutes of walking should it turn out that there was no bus available?
I asked my intuition, and the answer came to me, very clearly, that I should go to the bus station. So I did, despite my logical misgivings. The walk from the station took me through the center of the downtown area with shops and restaurants, and at one point, I turned to look in the window of a pharmacy that had a perfume display, boxes and boxes labeled INTUTION INTUITION INTUITION. I found it pretty amusing.
Got to the bus station and checked the schedule. The bus to my town was at 1:55. I asked a woman standing there for the time. It was 2:05. The next bus was not for another hour. Obviously, I was disappointed in my apparently-failed intuitive skills, and annoyed that now I had to turn around and walk in the opposite direction with extra distance and time added on.
Just then, I saw a bus with the bus number I needed pull up. The door opened, and I said to the driver, "Hey, is this the 1:55?" She said, "Yes, I'm sorry I'm late, but there was construction on ABC Road, and so I'm running late."
But it was not late for me. It was right on time. I got on the airconditioned bus and ten minutes later was at my daughter's school in plenty of time for the event.
The thread topic is actually answered prayer vs. coincidence, but no one has really addressed that since the first post, so it drifted into a general prayer topic. One thing for sure, it is certainly not about compassion and kindness, which too many of us mistakenly believe should go hand-in-hand with spirituality. So yes, it's gone off topic, but perhaps the reminder that those who consider themselves the most spiritual are not necessarily those with the most compassion for their fellow humans, was necessary to hear, painful as it might be to have to be reminded of that.
So then, let's move back to the topic. Perhaps someone has a story about how what appears to be a coincidence was an answer to a prayer, or vice versa!
Thread is actually just Prayer AND coincidence. Not answered or unanswered prayer. just payer. prayer can just be thankfulness, not just asking. showing gratitude.
I have a story, and it might not be accepted as on topic because some would not consider this a form of prayer, since there was no deity involved, but I will tell it anyway.
Some years ago, I read a small book on awakening your intuition. The author belonged to a church and so seemed to have a connection with Christianity, but it was not an overtly religious book. Basically the book boiled down to exercises to be used in tapping into one's own natural intuition to help with guidance and making decisions.
It was a hot day and I had left work early to attend an event at the end of my daughter's school day. I commuted to NYC by train from the NJ suburbs, and the train and bus schedules in the middle of the day are not as frequent as they are during rush hour.
I got off the train in early afternoon. The heat was terrible. The school was a two-and-a-half mile walk in one direction. About a ten-minute walk in the other direction was a bus stop where I knew I could get a bus to near the school, but I did not know the schedule, and of course this was pre-smart-phone.
So I had a dilemma. Should I just walk to the school in the heat without checking out the bus, or should I go to the bus station and hope that I could get on a bus that would get me to the school in time, thereby risking wasting twenty extra minutes of walking should it turn out that there was no bus available?
I asked my intuition, and the answer came to me, very clearly, that I should go to the bus station. So I did, despite my logical misgivings. The walk from the station took me through the center of the downtown area with shops and restaurants, and at one point, I turned to look in the window of a pharmacy that had a perfume display, boxes and boxes labeled INTUTION INTUITION INTUITION. I found it pretty amusing.
Got to the bus station and checked the schedule. The bus to my town was at 1:55. I asked a woman standing there for the time. It was 2:05. The next bus was not for another hour. Obviously, I was disappointed in my apparently-failed intuitive skills, and annoyed that now I had to turn around and walk in the opposite direction with extra distance and time added on.
Just then, I saw a bus with the bus number I needed pull up. The door opened, and I said to the driver, "Hey, is this the 1:55?" She said, "Yes, I'm sorry I'm late, but there was construction on ABC Road, and so I'm running late."
But it was not late for me. It was right on time. I got on the airconditioned bus and ten minutes later was at my daughter's school in plenty of time for the event.
Answer to intuition or coincidence?
Great story. I was there with you all along, the heat, the dreaded walk, the perfumes, and the relief of the bus showing up. Thank you for sharing.
some consider intuition to be the "still small voice" of their own soul , or divinity guiding them.
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