So tell me this.....

MEAT AND POTATOES: Tonight, for my blog, I just thought I would put down a few questions to think about. Be warned....these are morality-twisting. My goal is to give a "spark" to our minds and thought processes. I'm not here to be sarcastic, derogatory, or ill-willed. Just think of me as a personal trainer for the mind. Just like the best workouts for the body include intensity, fortitude, and pain, I believe that our minds work the same way and achieve the same benefit by simply putting it to the same, rigorous tests. We have to be pushed to the breaking point to gain ground. So here it goes:

1. The Bible speaks of prayer and the fact that if we pray for something "in God's will," consider it done. Now my question is this: Wouldn't God's will (according to the Bible) be carried out regardless of your prayers? My interpretation of all of this is that no matter what happens, God's "will" is going to be fulfilled no matter who's praying and what they're praying for. The 2nd part of this question has to do with the following: Why on Earth would it NOT be in God's will to save a dying person from cancer or AIDS, or to even heal an amputee? And actually, that brings me to another point that should be addressed: Can anyone find a documented case of an amputee being healed by God? I have heard reports of cancer being healed, and of HIV being healed, but considering that our immune-system is one of the most powerful biological systems in the world, combined with the potent placebo-effect from the "God high," it is not unreasonable to think that human-beings can be healed rather quickly and it have nothing to do with God whatsoever? As a personal sidenote I would like to add: When I was 13, I had battled severe asthma for all of my life, and while my dad and I were watching a TBN program with Benny Hinn on it, he was listing out the people watching on TV that he felt had been healed of all of these diseases. To my surprise, he actually said, "I feel that someone is being healed of asthma right now as we speak." So I jumped up and down and my dad and I were very happy because asthma had brought such misery to my life throughout the years, and finally, I just knew this was it. I really believed I was healed. Well, within weeks, I was hit with another bad case of weather-induced asthma and as you might guess, I was crushed. My point here is the fact that I was ABSOLUTELY 100% CERTAIN THAT BENNY HINN WAS RIGHT AND GOD HAD HEALED ME OF ASTHMA, AND WE PRAYED AND PRAYED, AND PRAISED AND PRAISED, AND THANKED AND THANKED GOD FOR THIS, but it didn't happen. This in no way changed my feelings toward God. I just thought maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I doubted my healing or something.

2. What was the purpose of God's Great Flood that killed off most of humanity, when He would eventually send the savior Jesus Christ to redeem us from our sins? I was taught that God was not bound by time, and He is simultaneously in the past, present, and future so did He not have a plan from the beginning? Pastors everywhere speak of the grand plan that God has in action, but logically speaking, was the Great Flood really necessary? And scientifically speaking, no evidence of Noah's ark has ever been found, and few scientists believe in a worldwide flood having ever occurred.(1)

3. God speaks to pastors everywhere. Or, at least that's what the preachers tell us. Then why are pastors everywhere teaching different philosophies and interpretations of Christianity? So many denominations. So many differing messages. So much confusion. Does anyone else see the incosistencies with this?

1. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090206-smaller-noah-flood.html