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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