Orthodox Case

There are people who pray and they experience very unpleasant things in life. Or people who don’t pray and experience pleasant things in life. How do I know prayer is helping me?

We don’t always feel the effects, we know because the astronomers have seen the stars, told us about the stars, and we believed them. Just like we believe the scientists. We don’t question the scienctists because we can verify what they claim. We can do the same thing with the saints.

The saints tell us that Christ will always hear our prayers and that he will not give us what we want, but what we need. And sometimes what we want and need might be the same thing. That’s what the saints have reached, and essentially, what we need is Christ.

What we want isn’t always whats good for us. We want a high salary, we want good health, we want whats best for our children. These are all things that are good, but not necessarily what Christ wants for us individually.

He may allow us to suffer, he may allow suffering to happen to us because it may be good for us to go through that suffering to wake us up.

We know God’s purpose is to save us, but we don’t always know he’s working his plan to save us. He allows us to have free will, he will not violate our free will. He wants us to come to him using our free will given to us

There are times when people only pray in times of trouble, sadness, etc., why is it important that we pray on a daily basis?

We’re addicts, were addicted severely to our passions, to the pleasures, to the self-centeredness of our personalities. We’re addicted to caring for number one. This is what the fathers of the church call their passions, the passions that are stirred up through the flesh, through the mind, through emotions, when we don’t get what we want. We become like brats. Like when we get