Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!europa.asd.contel.com!gatech!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: daly@strawber.princeton.edu (John Daly) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: prayer for others (was BIBLE references) Message-ID: Date: 27 Jun 91 06:41:58 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (CFD) Lines: 20 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , sasjzc@dev.sas.com (James Cox) writes: |> People pray that God will heal someone, or that he/she will help them |> get the raise they need, or that he/she will help them get a date on |> Saturday night. ... |> Does that mean I believe that intercessional (i.e. praying that God |> will intervene in our affairs) prayer should not be done? No. |> I think that when we are really praying unselfishly for someone else |> to succeed, we are accomplishing several purposes: Good post. I do not think that praying our own desires is necessarily bad though. Parents want to know what kind of Christmas presents their children would like to have, and as long as the parents are interested their children will be certainly comply. This does not presuppose that the parents will, or even should, get them everything they want. When such "desires of the heart" are shared, the whole family grows. I believe that it is important to go to God in prayer with our troubles AND our desires. When we do this humbly, it draws us closer to Him. It is one of the ways in which we give him that which He really wants from us anyway, our hearts.