Does God answer prayer and control events?

[Clint]

Three weeks ago my father had a heart attack. It was one event in a long history of bad health. I stood with my pastor and another elder and we prayed in agreement that if my 79 year old father was to live, he be given good health in his final years.

I was unable to rest until I drove the 450 miles to see him, so the following week I made the trip. I was going to arrive there on Wednesday and leave on Friday. I stopped along the way to see my sister and her husband. While I was there my left eye (my blind eye) became so infected I couldn’t use my good eye. I had to be driven to the nearest VA hospital by my sister. It would be another day before I would be able to see well enough to complete the trip to see my father.

When I arrived at my father’s home I decided to stay until Saturday. On Friday night, after I would have been gone by my original plan, my father became very ill and we had to call 911. My mother wouldn’t have known how ill he was except that he couldn’t stay awake to talk to me after expressing how anxious he was to do just that. The paramedics kept him alive by using paddles until he was taken to the one hospital he didn’t want to go to. They said they didn’t think he would live to make the trip to another hospital. The next three days were very difficult.

The doctor on duty that night was a no-nonsense repertory specialist. He read through my father’s records and discovered that he had been diagnosed with sleep apnea in the past but hadn’t been treating the condition. He said that his poor health was likely due to the sleep apnea and that if he didn’t treat it he would die. He also said that he would probably be able to live well if he used the therapy that had been prescribed. I was able to use my influence with my father to get him to begin using the breathing apparatus the doctor prescribed and to commit to it for the rest of his life.

Dad has been feeling better and getting stronger every day since his discharge from the hospital. His blood pressure is stabilizing, his mind is getting sharper and sharper and he is once again steady on his feet.

Before I left, I visited with his 94 year-old sister and coaxed his 92 year-old brother off his tractor to visit and show off his horse and acreage. His 88 year-old sister just got married again. I think Dad has some good years ahead of him.

Did God answer my prayer in the affirmative? Could it be that my delay in route and his admittance to a hospital he didn’t want to go where the doctor on duty was an expert on his problem was just a coincidence?

[koan]

I love these stories. I'm so happy for you that your dad got the proper diagnosis. Some would say it is coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence. Hope your eye is better.

[Clint]

Originally Posted by koan

I love these stories. I'm so happy for you that your dad got the proper diagnosis. Some would say it is coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence. Hope your eye is better.

Thank you Koan.

My eye healed very well and the episode actually turned out to be a bonus. The VA hospital didn’t have an ophthalmologist on duty so they referred me to a local clinic. The ophthalmologist that I saw pointed out that what was going on in my eye wasn’t worsening glaucoma like I thought it was. He said it was an eroded cornea that had become infected. The erosion is a condition I have in my other eye as well. He said there is an underlying condition that is causing the erosions and that he thinks it is treatable. I will be pursuing the possibility with my regular ophthalmologist.

God is good.

[Geezer Gal]

Coincidence is just God working anonymously! Praise the Lord that He has brought your father through and that your eye is healing nicely! I'm sure the Lord has wonderful plans for you and your family.....he has given you all a wonderful testimony to share of His goodness and faithfulness!

[Geezer Gal]

God is always faithful to answer our prayers. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no. He has a plan established for each of our lives, predestined before we were even conceived in our mother's wombs. I heard it described one time, that God is the master weaver and we are just the threads. All we can see are the threads on either side of us...we don't know the pattern or how the weave is going. God, as the weaver, already knows the pattern and where to place each thread (us) where it needs to be and when to complete the pattern perfectly.

I'm blessed to hear of how faithful He has been to your prayers for your wife and your faith that He will answer. Remember...Faith is the key:

F orsaking
A ll
I
T rust
H im

Blessings!

[Clint]

Originally Posted by Jives

My poor wife has been hospitalized 96 times in the last ten years. She has come close to death many, many times.

Each time she was touch and go, I prayed to God to please let me have just a little more time with her.

Each time she made a recovery, sometimes miraculously so.

I'm a believer.

I wonder which is greater. Is it that God created and sustains the universe or is it that as small as we are in the universe He responds to each of us when we call on Him? In comparison, I can’t keep up with what is going on under the roof of my own house.

I hope you have many happy years with your wife.

[Ted]

Clint

We disagree on many things but on this one we are totally agreed. God does answer prayer. I truly believe that.

I am pleased for you and your family. My father passed away a year ago Jan. 6 at 83. He had lived a long and vigorous life being very active right to the end. He was a fine Christian gentleman and my best friend, next to my wife that is. LOL.

Life in Christ is so interesting even when we disagree.

Shalom
Ted

[Clint]

Originally Posted by Ted

Clint

We disagree on many things but on this one we are totally agreed. God does answer prayer. I truly believe that.

I am pleased for you and your family. My father passed away a year ago Jan. 6 at 83. He had lived a long and vigorous life being very active right to the end. He was a fine Christian gentleman and my best friend, next to my wife that is. LOL.

Life in Christ is so interesting even when we disagree.

Shalom
Ted

I can only imagine how it must hurt to no longer have your father and friend with you. I pray the Spirit of God is comforting you and giving you peace.

My father and I are also close, and I know I will have to let go one day. Like your father, he is Christian gentleman and like you, I know we will only be separated for a time.

Closer than my wife and my father is the Lord. You and I have Him in common, and with Him in common our disagreements don’t seem so great.

Thank you for your kind words.

[LottomagicZ4941]

My mom always holds that everything that happens happens for God's reasons.

My pastor once said that Martin Luther stated that his greatest sin was lack of faith.

Don't know the refrence but there is one about Satan quoting scripture. Sometimes I think God has more important things then my little life and that "the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike"

Don't know why God healed my knee that one time. My big mouth? Don't know. But he did. It is said that the faith of a mustard sead can move a mountain. I had no great faith. Just thought that my knee would be healed a week or two faster. Guess somewhere between me and the youth pastor God decided to show us there was enough faith for the day.

A fool being known for his many words use to be my least favorite verse as a person who tends to be verbally prolific.

My new least favorite is the one about the people casting out deamons in his name not being known by him.

[Raven]

Originally Posted by Clint

Three weeks ago my father had a heart attack. It was one event in a long history of bad health. I stood with my pastor and another elder and we prayed in agreement that if my 79 year old father was to live, he be given good health in his final years.

I was unable to rest until I drove the 450 miles to see him, so the following week I made the trip. I was going to arrive there on Wednesday and leave on Friday. I stopped along the way to see my sister and her husband. While I was there my left eye (my blind eye) became so infected I couldn’t use my good eye. I had to be driven to the nearest VA hospital by my sister. It would be another day before I would be able to see well enough to complete the trip to see my father.

When I arrived at my father’s home I decided to stay until Saturday. On Friday night, after I would have been gone by my original plan, my father became very ill and we had to call 911. My mother wouldn’t have known how ill he was except that he couldn’t stay awake to talk to me after expressing how anxious he was to do just that. The paramedics kept him alive by using paddles until he was taken to the one hospital he didn’t want to go to. They said they didn’t think he would live to make the trip to another hospital. The next three days were very difficult.

The doctor on duty that night was a no-nonsense repertory specialist. He read through my father’s records and discovered that he had been diagnosed with sleep apnea in the past but hadn’t been treating the condition. He said that his poor health was likely due to the sleep apnea and that if he didn’t treat it he would die. He also said that he would probably be able to live well if he used the therapy that had been prescribed. I was able to use my influence with my father to get him to begin using the breathing apparatus the doctor prescribed and to commit to it for the rest of his life.

Dad has been feeling better and getting stronger every day since his discharge from the hospital. His blood pressure is stabilizing, his mind is getting sharper and sharper and he is once again steady on his feet.

Before I left, I visited with his 94 year-old sister and coaxed his 92 year-old brother off his tractor to visit and show off his horse and acreage. His 88 year-old sister just got married again. I think Dad has some good years ahead of him.

Did God answer my prayer in the affirmative? Could it be that my delay in route and his admittance to a hospital he didn’t want to go where the doctor on duty was an expert on his problem was just a coincidence?

Not a coincidence at all! Of course He answered! As someone who has worked in hospitals for the last 16 years, I can tell you, YEP!
The healing touch of God is alive and well!
Oh and BTW.....remember the story of Jesus healing the blind guy, by spitting and making a salve with the mud? Now you know good and well, all He had to do was speak, and that blind man would've been cured just the same. But He chose to do it using a substance instead. He knew it would be easier for us to believe in the 'aspirin', but He cures the headache, just the same.