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Have any of you ever gotten incorrect answers to prayers when you were so sure that you got the correct answer? I’ve been struggling with what I thought was inspiration and turned out to be completely wrong. I got this answer while in the temple and I remember I felt very in tune with the spirit and got the answer the same way that I usually usually communicate with God. What was revealed to me was that my uncle who had cancer would pass away before the end of that year, and my grandpa would pass away before the end of the following year. I was worried about them so that’s why I wanted to see if God would tell me how much longer they had. I even tried to see if He would tell me about any other family members but I got a ‘stupor of thought’ so I took that as Him saying He wasn’t going to tell me, which made sense to me because no one else was ill. I was so sure that it was correct inspiration. Well the end of that year came and my uncle was still here. He passed away that February though. Then the following year passed and my grandpa is still here. He’s going downhill but he’s still here. So somehow I got a blatantly wrong answer when I was so sure it was true. Now I’m struggling with ‘who was wrong’? Did I receive the revelation wrong of did God lie to me? Both of those answers make me uncomfortable because I was so sure that it was correct, so how am I supposed to know whether inspiration in the future is correct or not if either I can get it so horribly wrong or God may lie to me. It’s so confusing and I wanted to see if anyone here had any input. God has always answered my prayers and when I felt something very strongly, it always happened, or was true. This incident has caused me to really struggle with trusting answers to prayers. I also want to add, that I know Holland gave that talk about how sometimes God leads us down the wrong path for a reason, but I don’t get that story at all. Why would God send them down the wrong road on purpose. It didn’t really accomplish anything, and they already trusted that God was leading them down the the right road, so if He gave them the wrong answer, wouldn’t that damage their trust in Him? So in case someone was going to use that story as an example, that’s my take on the story.
I have to say I can’t answer your question(s). I have struggled all my life trying to get answers to prayers – all to no avail. I don’t feel like I got an answer for the truthfulness of the BOM, marrying my wife, helping my marriage.
I have come to feel that the only way to ignore the overwhelming evidence that the church isn’t daily led by Christ is to have a powerful connection from the holy ghost / God saying to ignore all of that. I have never received that. Statistically I have about 20 years left here on earth. How long do I keep trying before I say, “hmmm, maybe I will not get an answer that I was told I would”?
Now I have felt what I think is God communicating to my heart and even one time very directly to my mind. But as I have thought more about it, it seems he is more the times he is telling me he agrees with the path I am taking – not that the Mormon church is IT.
I don’t know if we can categorize answers to prayers as correct or incorrect, since I’m not sure we can be confident we know God’s will and are getting it in a pure form. I have had some answers I think weren’t “correct” – but I also have had answers I thought were incorrect but, in hindsight, can see that they might have been correct.
Also, please provide a link to or name of Elder Holland’s talk you referenced. I have a sneaking suspicion that he didn’t say the “wrong” path but rather meant a path we think is wrong at the time. I might be wrong about that, but it’s important to try to be accurate and precise with things like this.
Old-Timer, here is a link to his talk. https://www.lds.org/new-era/2005/07/wrong-roads-and-revelation?lang=eng Thanks. As I suspected, he used that experience to say it actually wasn’t a wrong road – that his father concluded it was the right road.
We can agree or disagree with that interpretation, but it’s important to understand it and represent it as accurately as possible.
I fail to see how it was the ‘right road’ still. I have never felt comfort from this story. I mostly brought it up because I thought someone may send it to me as an answer, but I feel it doesn’t answer my question, that was mainly why I talked about it I also won’t say it was the right road – or that the decision was inspired – but I won’t say it wasn’t the right road or inspired. I have no clue. What I am saying is that his father concluded it was the right inspiration, since his father concluded it probably shortened their drive home.
I also don’t get comfort from that story. I’m just saying that his talk doesn’t say God leads us down roads that
ultimatelyare the wrong ones in the end. I am positive Elder Holland doesn’t believe that. I do struggle with answers to prayers all the time. It’s the major reason for my own faith crisis (an incident that turned out very badly despite my being positive I was inspired and doing what God wanted). I’m just going to say that there are other possibilities besides you getting the revelation wrong or God lying.
Old-Timer, good point 
Dark Jedi, do you have any thoughts on what else it could be? I’m open to other interpretations because those are the only two options I see and they’re not my favorite
I’ve listened to that video spot from the church website before and had discussions with my college age kids about this topic. It is sometimes hard for me to express it without sounding doubtful or that I don’t believe, so I try to tread carefully but understand your thoughts a lot since me and my kids have had those questions. Elder Holland’s story is just that…a story…one way to look at it, one experience they had that they can draw meaning from. It won’t apply to all experiences of how God works because God works with us individually to help us, not with formulas and wrote responses (if you pay tithing, then you will be blessed with x, y, and z).
The study of revelation is helpful and interesting for us in our journey. It is personal. It requires faith. It is not simply.
D&C 9-10 shows Oliver struggling also. I can learn from some of those thoughts, but they still don’t answer all questions on why prayers seem to get answered wrong sometimes, and why sometimes, as LH mentions, no answers seem to come.
Instead of trying to answer for your specific situation…I just have some general principles that I believe in that set the boundaries for me with answers to prayers…and then within those boundaries…I can explore my personal revelation to search for meaning.
Here are some things off the top of my head that frame the discussion for me:
1) God cannot and will not lie. He is incapable of it. My faith (trust) is in that divine principle it will never happen.
2) My access to answers depends on my brain and physical capabilities to understand answers. When things are wrong between me and a perfect divine being (accepting premise#1) then it makes most sense any misunderstanding or error is on MY part in being able to understand them.
3) I don’t know how to completely remove my bias. I do not think it is possible. I am not a blank canvas and the lord writes upon my heart. I study it out, I gather my opinions, I have my desires and decisions…THEN I go to the Lord and so I am going with a biased approach. All prayer activity is done within my body. Our brains do give us limitations on our capacity to understand anything, let alone the nebulous mystical unseen forces. I think that is done by divine design, and so I accept that and celebrate it, not give up and cry “if there is no certainty then nothing matters”.
4) It is more important for me to analyze if I am asking the right questions, then analyzing if I got the right answers.
5) There is no one answer. The Lord is interested in our development and our methods, not on a score on our test.
When I see these kinds of paramters…then like Ray said…
Quote:I don’t know if we can categorize answers to prayers as correct or incorrect
As an analogy, my college daughter asked me what she should major in in college. As her father, how am I supposed to answer that correctly? I can’t. It’s her decision to make, and I can’t give it to her. I can only help her think through the factors (her strengths/weaknesses, career salaries and expectations, her work habits and desires, her hopes and dreams). In the end, there is no “road” she goes on that is wrong. There are only roads that lead us to next decisions and more questions and choices. That was my take on Elder Holland’s example when I heard it, that I get his point in providing a message of hope or teaching, but I see it differently in that God doesn’t care what road you take, he only cares if you keep going down wrong paths or if you choose to turn around some time. He doesn’t tell you to go down a wrong path so he can teach you, he simply allows you to go down wrong paths knowing you can recover…we all can…what is there that we cannot recover from?? If nothing, then there is no wrong answer, there is only wrong approaches to what questions we are asking.
I find these questions are toughest when people are struggling to get answers to specific questions, like what investment to make, what direction to turn, what time length on events, what outcomes for health or life and death, who to marry, or what job to take.
For all those questions…I imaging a loving Father in Heaven responds…”I don’t give a hoot. You choose, and I’ll help you along the way.”
Can you get an answer to “Is the Church true?” Yes, I think we all will. But…over a lifetime, that question brings vastly different meanings and interpretations. It is not the same question now as it was when I was on my mission at age 19. The answer I got at 19 was helpful then. I need different answers now.
And so I’m grateful the Lord doesn’t give us pass/fail, correct/incorrect answers. He knows I need more than that to develop to become who I need to become. And he doesn’t care what major or career I choose…just how I do it.
Perhaps if you are truly feeling puzzled by getting an answer that doesn’t make sense to you from God…you should remind yourself premise #1 (God cannot lie) and then start looking within the boundaries of your faith premises…what then is the purpose of the events that unfolded. What is God allowing you to learn from these things? How can you have faith to continue to pray when you’ve experienced this change of heart from these experiences? What are the questions you can ask to receive helpful revelation and confidence going forward?
Once I worked through some of those things to deepen my faith, I think I took the next step to ponder my observation that God may have nothing to do with my prayers…it is likely all going on inside me and me alone while tapping into divine forces. I think about that often and how that further deepens my faith in God.
That’s the type of discussion I’ve had with my kids. Perhaps God is telling you that you are ready to take the next big steps in your faith journey, and take things to the next level.
My faith is that is a good thing for you…it is not a path that only leads to a person deciding God does not exist, or prayers are worthless. There are deeper meanings and great value to seek answers to prayers. Maybe God knows you are ready for that part of your journey, and so he cannot feed you a correct answer to a timetable question or you would never venture beyond such limited questions.
Always Thinking wrote:@ ray good point
@ dark Jedi do you have any thoughts on what else it could be? I’m open to other interpretations because those are the only two options I see and they’re not my favorite
Difficult to discern, revelation sometimes is. Clouded by our own thoughts and feelings it is. See through a glass darkly we all do.
DarkJedi wrote:[Difficult to discern, revelation sometimes is. Clouded by our own thoughts and feelings it is. See through a glass darkly we all do.
😆 DJ Should change his avatar to this:
[img]http://billystrean.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/yoda.jpg [/img] @ heber thanks for that. I guess it really could have been for a reason. I know it is one of many things that has led me to my faith crisis. Maybe God wanted me to go through this faith crisis? Who knows. I have been trying to figure out what it could mean for about a year, but i’m sure I’ll figure it out someday. I know some answers don’t come for decades Always Thinking, I did have a similar experience when I was very young. It formed the basis for my being confused about “the spirit” through much of my life. I thought I received a very clear and specific answer to an urgent prayer. Very specific timelines were involved. I felt comforting “warm fuzzies” that eased my mind and gave me confidence. The expected time frame then passed without the resulting circumstance that I expected. I didn’t know where I went wrong, I figured I must have misinterpreted the feelings – they must have been my own emotions and not the spirit telling me what I wanted to hear.
Through most of my life I never understood what people were talking about when they mentioned “the spirit.” They would say “the spirit was so thick” and I was utterly confused because all I felt was the exact same thing that had led me astray.
Today my perspective is different in two ways: 1) I don’t clearly understand the difference between our emotion and the spirit, but as DJ expressed I don’t expect to see clearly.
2) My failure to interpret exact time-frames has led to my belief that we probably ask too much of divine communication. The end circumstance that I prayed for did eventually happen, it just took a lot longer than I wanted. I now hold the view that we often expect answers to come at the 3 ft level, when the satellite images are simply not able to zoom in enough to capture that level of detail. I see this as the design of mortality, the purpose of life on earth is to give us some distance so we can learn self-reliance.
I have received blisteringly true revelation (all the good feelings, undeniable) and then had the whole thing blow up in my face. So, yes, I have received wrong answers. I don’t buy that god would make you change your heart on the basis of solid revelation and then pull the rug out from under you.
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