Phil, I would think that Paul thought he was 
praying in the will of God when he asked that his 
thorn in the flesh would be removed.  The Lord 
had a lesson for Paul in not answering that prayer.


earlier, Phil Scovell, wrote:

>Here is something to think about for this new 
>year.  In recent times, as in a few months ago 
>and a few years ago, I heard the Lord in my 
>thoughts, that is, the Holy Spirit, telling me 
>to pray specifically for two different 
>things.  They were separated by a couple of 
>years so it wasn’t the same request each 
>time.  These were prayers of petition, that is, 
>prayers I was called upon  by the Lord to pray 
>and in both cases, pray for a specific positive 
>outcome.  For those who do not believe the Holy 
>Spirit has any such intercessory ministry he 
>administrates in the Body of Christ today, you 
>might as well stop reading now, because I don’t 
>want to offend anyone.  In comparison, you all 
>have read the dozens and dozens of prayers I 
>have prayed when looking for something I 
>lost.  If you cannot believe those prayers of 
>petition, you won’t believe these other two 
>petition to which I am now referring.  For the 
>moment, I am not going to tell you what those 
>petitionary prayers were specific but I probably 
>will later.  For now, I want to focus on the 
>fact, believe it or not, that God spoke to me in 
>my thoughts and told me, at two different times, 
>to pray for a specific outcome; both of which 
>would have been God’s will to do in both 
>cases.  The problem is, neither prayer was 
>answered.  In the case of one, the Lord spoke to 
>me 3 weeks in advance of the event the was later 
>to occur and in the second prayer, it was a 
>couple of months, praying every day, and both 
>times, my will-of-God prayers were not 
>answered.  Would God ask you to pray for 
>something He knew He would not answer?  If so, 
>why?  Was it my fault for listening to voices in 
>my head?  Could it mean that God cannot answer 
>every prayer?  Warning; thin ice.  Oh, sure, the 
>old faithful axiom; God always answers prayer; 
>sometimes he just says, no.  Cute, but weak 
>theology to back it up.  Anyhow, let’s start 
>here and comment as you wish.  There are no 
>trick answers but I’ve been thinking about this 
>experience for sometime and thought you’d like 
>to share your own thoughts and conce{©&
>rns about unanswered prayer.
>
>
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