Does prayer matter

The last 2 discussions have centered on God's role in the world and how that effects prayer. We discussed Calvinism - God made a blue print before the world began dictating what everyone will do and who will go to heaven and who will go to hell; Arminianism - God gives us free will but knows in his wisdom (all knowing) what we will choose when it's time for us to choose; or Open Theism - God gave us free will and doesn't know at all times what will happen and/or sometimes changes his mind.

All of us believed in the Arminianism, free will, belief because basically, how can God be good, right, and just if he's already determined who goes or does not go to heaven? We leaned a bit towards God changing his mind at times also because of certain instances in the Bible. This conversation has been going on for many many years of course with each argument grabbing Bible references to support their arguments. I think it's safe to say we don't entirely know how everything works out or the intricacies of how God works all of the time to say 100% what it is. There's a reason though why Arminian's belief is called 'Arminianism' and not 'Godism'. There's a reason why Calvin's belief is called 'Calvinism' and not 'Christism'; and there's a reason why Calvin's writings are called "The Institutes of the Christian Religion" and not the 67th book of the Bible or the 28th book of the New Testament. They are all theories outlined by men who guess as to what God is doing.

So how does that affect prayer. By believing in free will and that God truly cares about what happens to us despite giving us the ability to choose we pray because he asked us to, he commanded us to. We talked about God being in control but not may be always intervening in the way we want or like. We agreed that prayer is important because of free will and because everything is not a blue print laid out by God since the beginning of time. Does God know what everyone will choose, may be, but does it mean we shouldn't pray, not at all. We need to pray to talk to God and tell/ask him about our life and the lives around us.

Conclusion: We agreed we have free will and we are able to choose what we do, not that it's programmed into us since the beginning of time. With this thought, and possibly with a hint of God changing his mind about things or intervening in some aspects, we think prayer is important.

We also discussed that prayer is hard too. For some of us it is easy to pray for others but harder to pray for ourselves because we don't always believe God will give us or do to us what we ask or pray for. It's hard to take time out and pray when one doesn't see results from prayer. But that shouldn't dissuade us from praying, easy to say - hard to do.

What are your thoughts?

Is God in Control?

I've been thinking a lot and had a few discussions with people after the shooting in Tucson, AZ. Is God in control? You can ask that a few ways: Did God plan for this to happen since the beginning of time? Did God know this was going to happen and still let it happen? Did God not know this was going to happen and therefore could not have done anything about it? Looking at what we will discuss this Sunday evening, what are your thoughts. Is God in control and if you believe He is, how is He in control? How do you view what happened in AZ and what happens on a daily basis around the world with your view of God?

Why Christianity?

It's been a week since we discussed this topic, anything else on your mind? Did you change your thinking or your view towards what you believed or felt before? If you have any thoughts, go for it. I'll write something tomorrow in line with what I said last meeting.