- Mark 11:24
The Christian prays in faith, fully expecting to get what was asked for, but quickly realises that all is not as it seems. Prayers are not answered. Requests are not granted. What is going on?
OK, fair enough, perhaps a new Ferrari is not needed, but surely a cancer-ridden 5 year old daughter does need healing? Or maybe God has good reasons not granting the request, being omniscient and all; a greater, wiser plan that we're unaware of?
All very mysterious and unhelpful. We need a more detailed flowchart to clarify matters:
Oh dear, it's gotten worse! Surely there must be some objective proof that prayer works?
Several intercessory prayer studies have indeed been performed, looking for a statistically significant impact of prayer, but none was found. Bizarrely, patients aware of being prayed for in one study seemed to even fare worse than control groups, perhaps suffering from performance anxiety, or wondering why their illness needed prayer exactly.
So, it seems we just need a simple flowchart after all:
