This is heavy stuff, I shall try to lighten it up a bit, but the recent church shooting and tragedy sparked a few foolish tweets and proclamations that declared, “praying doesn’t work,” a theme that bounced all over the media. The idea being that your prayers won’t save you, so we need more guns or even less guns, as people struggled desperately for answers.
Praying does work, praying is so hugely beneficial it’s hard to even describe. Praying may not save your earthly life, but then again, many earthly lives have been saved by prayer. Praying doesn’t always stop a mad gunman, but in the back of the Christian mind, a mad gunman does not have the power to stop our “lives” anyway. Our lives are eternal.
It’s a grim reality, but sometimes prayer is really all we got. When it comes to “justice,” once some guy is dead or in jail, you can’t shoot him again. The end of a life is anti- climatic, unsatisfying, and “justice” tends to just ring hollow. What is justice but compensation, restoration? You can’t compensate someone for a loss that great, you can’t restore what has been taken, and I although I haven’t tried it yet, I’m pretty sure that tormenting someone won’t make your soul feel any better either.
When I was a kid, my grandma was kind of my lifeline to the world. She brought me food and shoes and hope. She picked up some hitch hikers one day and they shot her in the head, took her money, and left her to die. I had more than a few arguments with God about the injustice of it all. What kind of a God would let this happen, what kind of God would take the only person in the world I had?
To make it even more painful, she survived the surgeries, the recovery, and I began to have hope again. Then she just died. Hope reared its ugly head only to be snatched away once again. I spent many years trapped in that same script. Don’t ever hope, it just hurts too much.
They caught the bad guys, but since she had survived for a while, it wasn’t a murder charge. By the time they got done with the plea bargains and suspended sentences, the men who took her life, the men who left me stranded and alone in the world, spent only a few months in jail. They had stolen from me, destroyed more than they could even imagine, and they didn’t even care. I had so little already and those men took even that away from me.
So as a kid I wanted to shoot them, and today I totally empathize with those kind of feelings, but then what? You can’t shoot them again. I totally wanted them locked up forever, but then what? The truth is nothing would bring my grandma back and nothing could fix what had been taken away. Prayer was all I had, prayer and yelling at God. He is ever so patient too, because I have read Him the riot act a few times, and all He has ever done is gently lead me one step at a time, all the way to understanding and eventually, to forgiveness.
God is unbelievably good.
He has met me in the midst of some real atrocities, in the midst of prayer so many times. I don’t have all the answers, I don’t know why evil things happen, but I do know that prayer works, that prayer saves, that when prayer is all you got, you realize it is everything.
Prayer gave me justice. Prayer gave me restoration. It changes everything. Prayer brought me healing, and the Lord brought me His peace and comfort. There is no justice on earth like that, nothing that compares, nothing that we ourselves can do.
Prayer works, prayer is where we can find that Still Quiet Voice of victory that says, forgive them Father for they know not what they do.
John Branyan said:
Well said.
The “prayer doesn’t work” people need to employ a little of your thoughtfulness.
LikeLiked by 2 people
ministerhunt506 said:
Very well said, it is the point of what are we going to believe about Christ. Our earthly bodies are just a shell over our spirit man. thank you for well said.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Michael Wilson said:
Amen. God is unbelievably good. All the time. And you are right, prayer is our lifeline to God and eternal life. Justice will be done.
Be blessed. God is with you.
LikeLiked by 3 people
SharaC said:
Amen! I can’t get over what’s his face in New York telling people “you have priests and rabbis to pray for you, go DO something…” They are just proclaiming their utter ignorance on what prayer is and the power in it. I guess it’s easier to mock what you don’t understand.
LikeLiked by 3 people
ColorStorm said:
Truly msb, prayer puts wings on things we can not put into words.
What an account you lay bare. Imagine how good God must be to trust us with such pain and devastating loss.
But we know regarding your gram……………see you in the morning.
If you could but look around tomorrow’s corners; we can’t, but prayer sustains us and puts us in the hands of He who does all things well, even if we do not understand. God can make no mistakes, and prayer reveals more about ourselves if we pay attention.
Loved the bitter rawness of your words here btw. Comes from a good place. God shall wipe away all tears….
LikeLiked by 3 people
T. F. Thompson said:
I am also convinced that at other times prayers has stopped massive killings only since it didn’t happen we know nothing about it. The same as say with a lighthouse. We have no idea how many ships would have been wrecked for they saw the light and thus were deterred from harm. As the saying goes, we know more than we do. Thanks for your post. I appreciate it.
LikeLiked by 5 people
sklyjd said:
If prayers have stopped massive killings in America and the country is always having more of these mass killings than the rest of the developed countries put together God must not be really pissed off with America….or is there an obvious other reason?
LikeLike
T. F. Thompson said:
Of course, we don’t know the reason or reasons, but we can rest assured that God’s hand has kept the entire world from destroying itself until it meet HIS timetable of events. I can assure of that. The world is within God’s hands.
LikeLiked by 1 person
sklyjd said:
Sorry, but I cannot find any evidence the world is in anybody’s hands but self-destructive humans. To say you do not know the reasons for anything and you just simply apply it to a god is literally giving up on knowledge, reason and logical thinking and far too easy. All the controlled test results show that prayers do not work, however they do give confidence and are emotionally beneficial exercises for many religious people.
One thing that I can never understand, if this God can answer prayers and perform a miracle for the life in a hospital of a rich American businessman or clear up an individuals ear wax problems and find his car keys or sometimes answer many of the other millions of mundane prayers, why does this God desperately fail to provide the right environment or weather conditions for food growth in countries where 20,000 people of mostly children who die of famine and diseases every single day of the year? Is it because these people are likely to not be Christians and he does not care, and does it not make sense that Christian Americans are being targeted by these lunatic gunmen because God wants to see gun laws in America?
LikeLike
T. F. Thompson said:
Trust me. Keep asking all these important questions and I believe God will find a way to answer you in His time. Thank you for your reply.
LikeLike
newenglandsun said:
Prayer does not work.
Evidence: I have been praying fervently for a good long year that insanitybytes22 would stop blogging her racist, misogynistic, anti-socialist, and pro-Christian bigotry all over the web.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Debbie L said:
God works in mysterious ways. Generally, we don’t actually see our prayers answered. See my response to IB below. God didn’t save my dad’s life – but I had the comfort of God holding me as my family went through the loss of two great men one month a part…
LikeLiked by 1 person
insanitybytes22 said:
I think he’s actually being a smart alec. 🙂 He knows many of us have a “fan” club on the intertoobz that tries to claim we’re all haters of some sort.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Debbie L said:
I know….I just couldn’t resist with some love!!! 😇
LikeLiked by 1 person
newenglandsun said:
Oh dear…I didn’t mean for people to take that comment seriously.
LikeLike
Debbie L said:
IB has MANY friends and fans who love her posts. We know there are evil ones who attack her. I wasn’t taking any chances with your comment! IB knew you were kidding!
LikeLike
newenglandsun said:
I’m a regular here and she knows me as a friend.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Debbie L said:
Maybe next time add a smilie! 😁
LikeLike
newenglandsun said:
Never. 😡
LikeLike
newenglandsun said:
…a friend who shares her cynicism and makes equally cynical and sarcastic remarks…regularly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Debbie L said:
Lol
LikeLike
T. F. Thompson said:
Interesting as such for you have no one to pray to other than yourself.
LikeLike
Rebecca LuElla Miller said:
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, TF. Atheists can never know if God answers prayer because their prayers would be to who? Not someone they actually believe in. I’ve heard of some atheists coming to God by praying, If you’re there … and then repenting or asking. But it’s more of the, “I believe, help my unbelief” kind of prayer. I don’t think God will listen to someone who is mocking Him and defying Him by their very act of “prayer.”
Becky
LikeLiked by 1 person
newenglandsun said:
I was being tongue-in-cheek. Also, IB loves her “fan” club of people who thinks she’s a hater.
LikeLiked by 3 people
atimetoshare.me said:
Your story is a beautiful example of the power of prayer. God supports us through our intercessions and even when we can’t find the right words, the Spirit steps in and groans in words not understandable to us. He restore us, lifts us up, gives us hope and comfort, works miracles through and heals saddened hearts through prayers. Without them we lose our communication with our Creator. Now is the time to pray without ceasing.
LikeLiked by 2 people
ashleygulley said:
Prayer def works. I think some people expect immediate answers but God doesn’t always answer immediately or in the way we often expect Him to. Some times we have to work on being still and listening, as opposed to constantly praying, asking, and needing. Just listen & see what happens. Great post 💕🌈
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wally Fry said:
Beautiful
LikeLiked by 5 people
Debbie L said:
Amen!!! And Amen! Prayer is really all when have when bad things happen to our loved ones. What a tragedy for you at such a young age. But our God of Comfort had it all under control as you could share how He comforted you in your times of grief to help others! My favorite verse born out of my times of distress as I helpless watched my dad wither away under the care of doctors for 8 months with no explanation. We were fortunate he died in the hospital (he was in and out many times from a nursing home) and then we learned he did have cancer and it ate him up inside….They kept getting negative readings on this growth….”Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-5
You see, I was daddy’s little girl and my daughter took my place. She was his only granddaughter. They were best buddies when he died at the young age of 75 and she at the tender age of 16. She’s never really forgiven God as her favorite uncle died suddenly just one month prior to dad’s death. Oh, he was like my big brother – my sister’s 52 year old husband….It was a dark time for our family……
LikeLiked by 4 people
craftysurf said:
Prayer is a way to focus and think on the Divine. It removes us from this world, and reminds us that we are dead to earthly things.
I’ve learned now to never blame God for things that are squarely the failings of mankind on earth. Good thing we have been forgiven 🤙
LikeLiked by 3 people
The Isaiah 53:5 Project said:
Absolutely excellent IB, prayer does work.
Problem with people who say prayer doesn’t work in response to tragedy is that they are speaking with (as I said in a recent post) profound ignorance.
What many people who mock prayer don’t know is that this isn’t new at all. Look at what people said when Jesus was hanging on a cross. “He can’t even save himself…”
And, three days later, He not only saved himself, he also saved humanity from themselves.
All in all, the “prayer doesn’t work” crowd are nothing but fools, scoffers, and mockers that God will deal with as He always has.
LikeLiked by 8 people
Kathryne said:
Well said IB!! Agree with The Isaiah 53:5 project. They mock what they do not practice or do not understand. But we know prayer works and we will continue to pray, believe and get results, because we are God’s praying remnant in the earth. His perservative salt in a world tainted by evil.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Holly T. Ashley said:
Reblogged this on Holly T. Ashley and commented:
Amazing!
From: Insanitybytes2.wordpress.com/2017/11/09/prayer-doesnt-work
This is heavy stuff, I shall try to lighten it up a bit, but the recent church shooting and tragedy sparked a few foolish tweets and proclamations that declared, “praying doesn’t work,” a theme that bounced all over the media. The idea being that your prayers won’t save you, so we need more guns or even less guns, as people struggled desperately for answers.
Praying does work, praying is so hugely beneficial it’s hard to even describe. Praying may not save your earthly life, but then again, many earthly lives have been saved by prayer. Praying doesn’t always stop a mad gunman, but in the back of the Christian mind, a mad gunman does not have the power to stop our “lives” anyway. Our lives are eternal.
It’s a grim reality, but sometimes prayer is really all we got. When it comes to “justice,” once some guy is dead or in jail, you can’t shoot him again. The end of a life is anti- climatic, unsatisfying, and “justice” tends to just ring hollow. What is justice but compensation, restoration? You can’t compensate someone for a loss that great, you can’t restore what has been taken, and I although I haven’t tried it yet, I’m pretty sure that tormenting someone won’t make your soul feel any better either.
When I was a kid, my grandma was kind of my lifeline to the world. She brought me food and shoes and hope. She picked up some hitch hikers one day and they shot her in the head, took her money, and left her to die. I had more than a few arguments with God about the injustice of it all. What kind of a God would let this happen, what kind of God would take the only person in the world I had?
To make it even more painful, she survived the surgeries, the recovery, and I began to have hope again. Then she just died. Hope reared its ugly head only to be snatched away once again. I spent many years trapped in that same script. Don’t ever hope, it just hurts too much.
They caught the bad guys, but since she had survived for a while, it wasn’t a murder charge. By the time they got done with the plea bargains and suspended sentences, the men who took her life, the men who left me stranded and alone in the world, spent only a few months in jail. They had stolen from me, destroyed more than they could even imagine, and they didn’t even care. I had so little already and those men took even that away from me.
So as a kid I wanted to shoot them, and today I totally empathize with those kind of feelings, but then what? You can’t shoot them again. I totally wanted them locked up forever, but then what? The truth is nothing would bring my grandma back and nothing could fix what had been taken away. Prayer was all I had, prayer and yelling at God. He is ever so patient too, because I have read Him the riot act a few times, and all He has ever done is gently lead me one step at a time, all the way to understanding and eventually, to forgiveness.
God is unbelievably good.
He has met me in the midst of some real atrocities, in the midst of prayer so many times. I don’t have all the answers, I don’t know why evil things happen, but I do know that prayer works, that prayer saves, that when prayer is all you got, you realize it is everything.
Prayer gave me justice. Prayer gave me restoration. It changes everything. Prayer brought me healing, and the Lord brought me His peace and comfort. There is no justice on earth like that, nothing that compares, nothing that we ourselves can do.
Prayer works, prayer is where we can find that Still Quiet Voice of victory that says, forgive them Father for they know not what they do.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Holly T. Ashley said:
well, I didn’t know THAT would happen! sorry for taking up so much space 😦
LikeLiked by 2 people
Holly T. Ashley said:
You are simply amazing. Thank you for such a blessed reminder of the awesomeness of God.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Mel Wild said:
Amen, IB. Prayer does work. Even if it doesn’t change the circumstances, it can change us. It can turn our bitterness into freedom, our mourning into joy, our anxiety into comfort and peace.
It has always struck me funny that atheists say that God is not just. But there is nothing more unjust than to just die and that’s it. In other words, IB, your grandmother gets struck down, the perps basically get away with it… and that’s it, we all just become worm-food. Or, someone lives a marginalized life, poverty-stricken, disease, abuse…and then they just die. Nothing more. Where’s the justice in that? If there is no after-life, no final day of reckoning, there can be no resolution or justice.
The truth is, your grandmother lives! And we will all live together forever…no more war, no more death, no more tears…that’s justice. 🙂
LikeLiked by 6 people
karenlts25 said:
Amen to the “amen’s”. Beautiful sharing of heart from a beautiful heart, thanks IB.
LikeLiked by 2 people
oneta hayes said:
Often prayer does w
LikeLike
oneta hayes said:
Sorry for the m
LikeLike
oneta hayes said:
Well, here I am again. I gave up on that I-Pad thingy. I was trying to say that many times prayer does “work” in just the way we want it to. I think many Christians can give times that that has happened; however, the “not going to believers” will just say coincidence or it was going to happen anyway. But I know. I’m here and I absolutely believe it is because of prayer, but I can’t prove it. Also, many people just don’t tell because they believe they will be mocked. My advice – walk with Jesus a few years, find out for yourself if he will be a friend that just gives you something sometimes just because you asked. It is true that you probably will have asked for lots that he has not given, but you will know it was for your good.
LikeLiked by 1 person
lovejoybalance said:
I very much enjoyed this post and especially the very last sentence.💕
We need so much prayer right now! Prayer is what connects us to God. We read it all throughout the Bible and see the amazing power it has. What we need to be sure to do is follow the scripture in that we not only pray but honor hiim with our hearts, sincerity, the push to take action. Isaiah 29:13
Thanks for the post!
LikeLiked by 1 person
beholdinghimministries said:
So beautifully done… it reminds me of the Israelite spies returning and saying something different than God had promised. The world will say what the world will say, it knows no better. As believers we are called to demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. God has said that the fervent, effectual prayers of the righteous availeth much…He is not a man that He should lie. Whose report shall we believe? The world’s or God’s?
LikeLiked by 1 person
authorstephanieparkermckean said:
Beautifully written. Prayer works. Prayer does work. Prayer does change things. Prayer does change us. Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wally Fry said:
Reblogged this on Truth in Palmyra and commented:
Nothing to add here, just enjoy. Comments closed here
LikeLiked by 1 person
insanitybytes22 said:
Thanks, Wally 🙂
LikeLike
Wally Fry said:
It was awesome, IB, and I hope somebody will be blessed by it.
LikeLike
Elihu said:
Thank you for writing this! I love your testimony—so powerful. So much of what they say against prayer stems from a desire to make themselves feel better about their hopeless condition.
LikeLiked by 1 person
patrickhawthorne01 said:
Thanks for putting it out there, my friend.
LikeLiked by 1 person
sklyjd said:
T. F. Thompson. There was no “reply” tag. As you did not answer my questions it appears you do not know much at all. This is because God has obviously not told you anything and therefore I will get no answer for my important questions from either of you…..sheesh.
LikeLike