God answers every prayer no matter how insignificant it may seem.  That doesn't mean that we are going to get everything we want. God answers prayers according too a person's highest good.

Blessings,
Mairlyn 

Brendan,

I wish God would offer more help to my beloved Buffalo, Bills, but of course you're right.  Your comment about the tsunami catastrophe reminds me of a Pentecostal church in Phuket where every parishioner survived the tsunami and the building remained intact, despite the surrounding death and carnage, including four deaths in a nearby Catholic church.  I don't know how these Pentecostals construed their good fortune.  If they thanked God for sparing their lives, this would imply that God decided not to spare the lives of all the nearby Catholics, among others.  This reaction would be inappropriate.  But it would be acceptable for them simply to thank God for allowing them to continue in His service in their region. 

Much harm has been done by the mistaken assumption that the biblical God controls all natural disasters.   The Bible teaches that at creation God brought order out of chaos.  What is less known is that the Bible also teaches that God never took control over the forces of chaos in Nature:

e.g. "The fastest runner doesn't always win the race and tbe strongest warrior doesn't always win the battle.  The wise are often poor, and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy.  And those who are educated don't always lead successful lives.  IT IS ALL DECIDED BY CHANCE, by being at the right place at the right time (Ecclesiastes 9:11)."

In Storm's NDE he is told by "Jesus and the angels,"

"God doesn't control or dictate the outcome of every event, which would be a violation of God's creation.  This is because every bit of energy and matter has its own integrity and course to fulfill.  Every living creature has its own will that must be expressed ("My Descent into Death," p. 38)."

Preachers make God unlovable to many when they warn them that they must embrace every natural tragedy as a manifestation of God's sovereign will.
The King James mistranslation of Romans 8:28 has caused harm: "All things work together for good."
Paul is really saying, "God works in all things for good."  In other words, all things may be working against you, but through your faith God is working to salvage something good out of a bad situation.
So God empathizes with us as we suffer from events that God did not cause and never intended (Romans 8:26).  In Storm's NDE, "Jesus and the angels" expound on God's empathy this way:   

"...People experience God's emotions as we participate in God's creation just as God participates in the creation and feels our emotions (p. 39)."

God's emotions, however higher than our emotions, are what allow God to manifest as if He were a "person", despite the fact that He is in fact "The One" in the sense that "God's consciousness is the entire creation (pp. 68-69)." God's emotions are a manifestation of His essence as pure unconditional love.

Of course, none of this removes the mystery of prayer, but it points us to the right questions: e.g.
(1) God does not micro-manage our lives, but does have a few plans for our destiny.  The future is not fixed.  So under what circumstances can God's plan for us be thwarted, if at all? 

(2) What are the full promise and limitations of prayer properly offered in a disciplined life? 

On Marilyn's insight:

We need to be honest and intimate with God in our prayers.  So the prophets and the psalmist often complain bitterly to God and, with His blessing,  even argue with Him.   Honesty requires us to be very specific about what we truly want and what seems in the best interest of those in need.

But Marilyn nicely expresses a key Christian principle of prayer.   God appreciates our limited perspective and responds to the real need behind each petition for our "highest good."   So it is advisable to meditate on what form God's answer might have taken.  For example, in grad school, I went through periods of loneliness and besieged God to bring me my fantasy woman.   No doubt God was appalled by my cowardly refusal to risk rejection and  aggressively pursue a potentially unattainable woman I wanted.  When I would pray like this, I'd acrtually get a few unexpected calls from women who never called me or hadn't called for a long time.  I wound up asking them out, but panicked because I was a poor grad student and none of them were my fantasy woman.  So I now complained to God that He was going to bankrupt me.  Of course, my fantasy request was immature.  But in retrospect, I realized that God was replying to the real needs behind my request--loneliness and a current lack of balance in my life.  And I invariably had a great time with these women.

If we embrace the notion that every prayer offered in faith is answered at some level, then we must become creative and patient in contemplating what form the answer might eventually take.  This attitude can gain momentum for our faith and make it easier down the road to receive more awesome answers to future prayer requests.   

Raphael, your question is the perfect segue to my second scheduled topic: "Are the recently deceased more spiritually evolved than they were in this life?"  You remark, "What if our dead relatives were answering our calls? Seems more probable to me."   What makes you think they are as up to the task as, say, angels?  And why do you rule out direct intervention by God?

Don 

Just a general comment.  I believe the spirits try to communicate in any way they can.  My personal experience is that I have been contacted in dreams, and sometimes on request.  I wanted "proof" and asked for it and got it.  I have been spoken to directly and clearly with very short statements into my left ear at some of the darkest moments of my life.  I could hear the message clearly, and like I said it was very short, just enough.  I have had a biref familiar scent invoked while a clear message to a family member presented itself to me.  I have had computer equipment act bizarrely.  I have had physical objects move on their own right in front of my eyes.   I have also been provoked by "evil" spirits but not for many many years now.  "Evil" has no real power over people who continually seek positive guidance.  It's a weird world we live in, and it's definitely not "easy" for "them," and I don't claim to know who "they" are, but it happens regularly to me, at least "regularly" in the context of a lifetime.

sincerely, blink

what a neat thread. Kathy, I support your view about the beauty being in the imperfection. theres a movement back to this kind of thinking showing up the way some artistic people decorate their houses with simple, log cabin type objects, rustic and unfinished, but somehow beautiful and simple and making a statement about life. a bunch of dried flowers for example can be seeded or just stand there representing a promise.
Blink, my journey is similar to yours. I wanted proof also and got it. I think we need to demand it even sometimes although I've been passive most of my life, I see nothing wrong with demanding signs if you need help right away with something or you're going under. all my messages were short and to the point also, no lectures, lol, just do this thing, do it now, as you have asked, so shall you recieve.

the word God came from the root word good. there is always good in the world waiting to be revealed and in the eye of the beholder only. we need a new word for the word God though. we've just about worn the word down to nothing. the force be with you brother. lol.

ACIM says God knows nothing about this world we created, that he only sees his children sleeping wrapped in a bad dream. this is poetry, not to be taken literally. but we can assume we all created this world together for better or worse and we are passing through it as nothing stays the same here and theres no security in physicality. there is only one thing to do in that case; enjoy it as it's over too swiftly. suffering is relative and fluid like and theres no such thing as eternal damnation or the wrath of God, unless you're into that sort of thing and that's the kind of movie you like.

"[Raphael:] But if 'God' willingly created  an imperfect world, he wouldn't be a good God then, since He would be the source of all suffering."
____________________________________

But what if suffering is essential to true goodness?
A universe without  pain, suffering, and hardship might be morally inferior because it would lack the pain-dependent virtues.  The quality of our character is diminished without courage, compassion, generosity, and patience.  There is no courage without danger, no compassion without suffering, no generosity without want, and no patience without the frustration of anxious and painful delays.

Also, the moral value of love derives from the fact that is freely offered; and the value of our freedom is directly proportional to our capacity to choose contrary to strong evil inclinations.  Choices made with no inclinations one way or the other would be random, not free. 

In an alternate world in which pain is fairly distributed, the incentive to do good is less moral because it is motivated too much by the desire to avoid pain.  Our world is well designed to motivate us to be loving for the sheer delight of growing in love.  Our irrational world creates enough incentive to choose evil and thus makes us truly free.

Kathy,  a key insight of Christian spirituality is the principle that God delights in perfecting His strength through our weakness.  This principle alone can stifle the ego's relentless narcissism, glorify God's grace and PUL, and refute the hideous notion that progress  through the heavens is bankrolled by an accumulation of merit points.   

Paul''s life is a good example of this.  The number of times he was sick, cold, hungry, tortured,  rejected, and shipwrecked greatly weakened his physical strength and made him a less imposing figure.  His critics ultimately ridiculed his public speaking and his diminishing charisma, made worse by his failing eyesight.  They demanded that he supply letters of recommendation documenting his recent miracles.  Instead, Paul documents examples of his weakness and suffering in the service of the Gospel!  Why?  Because God told him, "My strength is perfected  through your weakness (2 Corinthians 12:8),"  God gave Paul this answer in response to Paul's repeated petitions to remove "the thorn" in his flesh (some physical disability).  And next to Jesus, Paul was arguably the most spiritually effective man who ever lived.  It is debatable whether Christianity could ever have become a world religion without Paul's tireless missionary efforts. 

This is my answer to the question of why God didn't just bypass the earth experiment and place us in pleasant astral realms devoid of the earth's chaotic disasters and suffering.  It also helps explain why the recently deceased are NOT more spiritually evolved than they were in this life.  But this brings me to the next two questions of my 8-fold topical schedule for this thread. 

Don

P.S.1:  Kathy, nice image of beauty in weakness!
P.S.2:  Raphael, I'm not questioning our deceased loved ones' desire to assist us, only their initial  capacity to do so.  But I'm admittedly uncertain about the ratio of heavenly nonhumans to discarnate humans within the ranks of "guardian angels."

is it a coincidence we posted within about 4 minutes of each other Don?
you said:
But what if suffering is essential to true goodness?
______

what is true goodness? I don't want to be contrary here but you bring up good points. I sense a change in you from previous years. or maybe it's me or both of us. so with the question of suffering versus no suffering, many of us can become martyr's and elevate ourselves erroneously that we are this or that perfection unrecognized therefore God will reward us. such a phrase as "pick up your cross and carry it" in reference to this.
this would lead to a superiority complex if embraced as a belief system. within a spiritual phychology the idea is to neither have an inferior nor a superior complex, but be of a probing nature mentally and stay balanced within relationship to others.
what your saying is "no pain, no gain" the athletes slogan when strengthening his muscles.
trouble is the pain filled life can be overly identified with as a spiritual life of superior dimension, when in actuality we don't need pain necessarily and it can be thrown off by the choice to experience what is pleasurable instead, not to avoid pain, but utilizing free will to experience what we wish through the imagination as an aid.
why suffer if there's no reason? once I sliced my finger for example. I felt the slice of it without looking. before the pain signal got to my brain, my guide, whom I call DP shouted at me "DO YOU NEED PAIN?" well, I quickly thought about it and said, certainly not! I had a choice there in that instant and made the right one, as when I again looked at the finger I saw no blood, and had no pain, only a tingling sensation as if the cells were gathering themselves together quicker than the eye could discern.
so this tells me something about will, and about our choice making abilities firmly expressed, even outloud perhaps. affirming my will outloud did seem to add power to the moment. I quickly went into a space then. Jesus thoughts, choosing, my self image, all of that crowding in. we are amazing beings is all I concluded, quite capable of choosing the miracle over the established rules of what we can and cannot achieve here on our planet, painlessly, that is and assuming there is that grace element we sometimes talk about. I think grace is related to the ability to forgive and make fresh starts. doesn't have anything to do with religion from my pov as the child does it all the time, we might take their example then.