slick rick;268896" ; rel= said:
Folks I've thought about this and truly having problems asking because of my past , but I will . I want to start by saying my only brother has found out he has stage four cancer , the thing is he's very healthy looking never lived and done the things I have for most my life .
We have been raised in a family that believes in the power of prayer and healing , my 77 year old Mother raised us that way . I fall far short of living as good a life as most of you but I don't think God cares when it comes to these things .
My request is please don't judge my seriousness by my actions when I ask all that believe in healing to agree with me when I know this can be done . If your not a believer in healing I understand but I do and that's what I ask , believe with me Please !!!!
Rick I have a little more time to send a message your way right now and I would ask you accept it in the spirit it is intended?
Stop beating yourself up Bro.
When I was young I tried praying to a 9-1-1 God and trying to make a deal with him such as "If you do this for me I will do that for you etc.
It never worked out the way I had envisioned and so I came to the conclusion there was no God, And if there were he wanted nothing to do with the likes of me, And life's trials only enforced it.
Religion in my opinion was created for two purposes, One was to keep me in fear and control me and the other was to extort money, This belief was enforced by growing up in an enclosed valley in Idaho being a member of one of only two families that weren't L.D.S. and living under the scorn and outright rejection that was thrown my way. I believed this for most of my life.
I eventually came to believe that there was a universal power that exists in this world for the benefit of mankind and was able to tap into that power that I call God for a lack of a better word for it?
This isn't any one else's God that people were trying to cram down my throat and made me choke every time; it was a god of my own understanding and I bet it's not to far removed from other peoples conceptions.
Maybe except for a few things such as I don't believe there is a God up there with a huge fly swatter just waiting for my little ass to land somewhere so he can smite me!
I have come to believe my salvation is through faith by Grace and Grace alone and my good works don't have a damn thing to do with it.
That's just him using me to help someone else who is in need, God cant change your tire but I can etc.
My belief became a leap of faith, I had to turn my will and my life over to a power I didn't even believe in, In short I had to learn how to loose in order to win and that was a very difficult concept for me.
Love your brother Slick and help him to learn about love also, The very best prayer takes me clear out of the equation and I pray that God gives a person what they need according to his will and then I don't try to play God and I don't place impossible demands upon him and then wind up blaming him for what I loose?
I have learned that I can pray for foolish things such as asking him to remove all fear, He aint gonna do that because fear is one of the instincts he gave me for survival, It is up to me to figure out the difference between reasonable fear and unreasonable fear.
Unreasonable fear I give to him because it only makes me suffer a thousand tragedies most of wich never happen to me, And the reasonable fear I deal with by humility.
It is only through greater humility that I am able to deal with the very real fears of the medical issues that I suffer from.
(The very best prayer) you could say for me is to ask God to give me what I need according to his will for me without (assuming) what that will is?
Align your will with his own and you just may have a more harmonious outcome?
Be of service teaching me and perhaps your brother more about the subject of love because that's what (I) am here for to begin with. In so doing you will teach yourself the same lesson?
There are success stories behind the sickness your brother has, I have witnessed them they are not impossible.
Medical science has come a long way just in our time And the only way God has changed is in our conception.
Religious people are not wrong my brother, Religion has helped millions of people over thousands of years, But it just didn't help me, spirituality has helped me to see what I was missing the entire time.
Turn this entire issue over to a power greater than yourself and stay the course wherever it leads?:Shrug: