In Reply to: well one thing posted by lydia on November 16, 2004 at 17:57:19:
I was not even thinking of people praying for things just to satisfy their lusts. I meant farmers who are desperate for rain, parents praying for sick children who don't get better but die, a father of eight praying for a good job with health benefits, but having to work at 3 jobs with no benefits -- what many people would consider "necessities."
Some churches (and Berg) insist God MUST supply those needs or he's worse than an infidel, but with the downturned economy, even in the States its getting harder and harder. You find that what you think logically you need (dental coverage for your kids) well, you can somehow make it through life without. I know wealthy Christians marvel that some people are lower middle class and struggling, ("ever'body shud be blassed lak ah am") but the reality is that much of the working world is not having all their needs met. And this is to speak nothing of the Third World with no medical coverage at all, where good people literally DIE for lack of money to pay doctors and buy medicine, where kids DON'T get adequate education.
Job's religious friends thought they had all the right answers and formulas as to why God was not "blessing" Job. They knew it all and Job finally replied sarcastically, "Surely you are the people, and when you die, wisdom will die with you."
But in the end we see some things simply cannot be reduced to neat 1+1 formulas. Life is a mystery sometimes, and God is most surely a mystery sometimes. As the prophets said, and not in any derogatory sense, "Surely you are a God who loves to hide yourself."