Is It God Who Answered That Prayer?
H ow do we know that it is God who answers prayer? I don't mean that there might be someone else who is listening to prayer, but when we receive something we've been praying for, how do we know that it has come by the will of God and not by some other means? In a recent discussion on this blog, one of the readers mentioned a particular person receiving something she had been praying for the next day after she asked her friends to pray about it. The reader seems to think this proved that God had given this thing, but how can we possibly know if it was from God or if the act of asking her friends for prayer informed her friends of her desire and that is why her friend did what he did? We want to credit God with using our friends to answer our prayers, but we can't say that everything our friends do is the will of God. And if we receive something we ask for, can we take that as validation of the thing we intend to use it for? There are many times that there is no clear answe...