Does God answer prayers? I think Not.

With all that is going on the world and has for centuries I cannot help but wonder about this whole answered prayer vs God's will. We praise God and give him credit when things go the way we had hoped, what we had prayed for. On the other hand; when a prayer goes unanswered or something horrible happens, we say, we have "free will" or "it must have been God's will." Really people?

So if a child is saved from abuse and we say God loved her and answered her prayers; are we saying God didn't love the abused child who was not saved? Or maybe he/she just wasn't God's "Favorite" at the time. When horrible crimes are committed by gangs and pirates, it is because of "free will" the bad guys "will" wins over the believer's will. Makes sense to me.
So, the truth is we really don't know isn't it? You see, I think it is life. Period. Life has good and bad.  You have good people in the world and you have bad. There are some who have no conscious, and others who do. Life happens. We cannot control it. Nor do I believe prayer is the answer. I do however believe God is there is give us strength and endurance through these troubling times in our lives; we can know we are not alone to face the hardships. God can do that; God will send the right people at the right time for each situation. Can He answer prayer? Sure. Does He? Not so sure. I tend to continue to believe Life Happens and God gets us through it.
I don't really believe God cares about our earthly situations. Hold on before you blow a casket now; I just think he placed us here in the beginning for one purpose and we decided to use it for another purpose. We decided and continue to decide on a daily basis we don't need him. We can handle this thing called "Life" on our own. When we are in a jam and at the end of our rope, when we just don't know what to do, then and only then we will throw up our hands and surrender to God. And if he answers our prayer he is a kind and merciful God, and if he doesn't, oh well it just wasn't His will right now. The more I ponder on these things the more I come to believe that life is life. We are at each other's mercy and the mercy of our physical bodies. And God is not interested in whether or not we live or die, suffer or don't suffer. That is not his concern. Have I got your attention now?

God created us to be spiritual beings. To live on this earth to serve him and take care of the earth and its inhabitants. And what a fine job we are doing. We live for ourselves and what we can get out of life. Yes, we support missionaries and ministries. We go "out there" and serve the less unfortunates. But at what cost to ourselves? Do we really take our comfort and put it at anothers feet? Are we willing to give up our homes to give to the poor? Are we even willing to open an extra room who has no home? No. 90% of us cannot say we are. And we have many good reasons. Or if we look honestly, are they excuses? Again, do we really want to invite a stranger into our home and live with them? Aren't we comfortable having the house to ourselves, with our own families? Is that why we have homeless people; poor families wondering why they can't get food on the table for their kids? I'm just saying, as "Christians" are we doing ALL we can do to be like Christ; to serve God?  I am ashamed to say I know I don't. And I will continue to do more each day and make myself uncomfortable just a little.