I guess, in answer to your questions, it depends on what we are praying for, and how deeply or sincerely we are praying for it, just like how sincere we are when we respond to an altar call.

Do we respond to an altar call out of fear, or out of love and thanksgiving for what Christ did for us?

Do we pray our of fear, or out of love and thanksgiving for what Christ did for us?

Mike,

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3. Can we ever come to the point where we just immediately believe God has answered our prayer, without long delays of unbelief? Or, must we always pray hard enough until we first persuade ourselves that He will answer our prayer? Will we always be so hard of believing?

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Just a question here... Was Jesus unbelieving when He went and prayed 3 times in the Garden of Gethsemane? He kept on praying when the disciples couldn't keep their eyes open and went to sleep. Was this unbelief? I don't think so. I also don't think that when we keep on asking God for things, as Jacob did at the Brook Jabbok, that it is necessarily unbelief.

I know that when I want something really bad I will dwell upon that subject in my thoughts at great length. I will mull it over from all sides, and those around me will have to hear about it again and again. I think this is what Ellen White speaking of, and what Jesus was doing. He was consumed with what was before Him. The eternal destiny of humanity on the line, and He wanted talk each aspect of what was to come over with His Father.

I think this is what our Heavenly Father wants from us. He wants us to become "obsessed" with heavenly realities, and when we do we will cling to Him very passionately. We will not be satisfied with speaking to Him once or twice and then going on about our daily business. We will want the reality to be expressed immediately with such passion that we will keep on asking until we see the results. Not because we are doubting, but because our passion for Heaven, God, and the salvation of our fellowman consume us.

Constant prayer and continually requesting power, strength, wisdom, understanding, and a fuller revelation of God's abiding presence are not evidence of unbelief, at least not to me. To me it shows a passion for what should be most important to us.

Interesting discussion. But Mike, I was thinking in terms of someone that either slipped into the devils trap of self-centeredness -OR- has chosen that a long time ago. He sees his errors because the Holy Spirit has convinced him that he needs a change. Then his cry is for God to snatch him back to Him and make him a willing subject of the Redeemer.

In fact that is the history of both the prodigal son and me. God gave both him and me a true understanding of our true condition and our great need. In both cases God understood us and would not let either of us go. He snatched me back from the pit of my own destruction.
--Ðøug

Doug, Daryl and Gary, it's good that we are also specifying exactly what we're talking about here. Thank you.

Jesus definitely was not unbelieving when He prayed three times hoping to save mankind some other way than having to endure the wrath and forsaking of His Father. But neither was He begging or pleading in the sense that He wanted something contrary to God's will or as though He wasn't sure of God's purposes for Him.

And when we're backslidden and just beginning to respond and return to the Lord we are naturally going to be weak and doubtful of our motives and God's intentions. During this phase of life we will beg and plead long and hard until we begin to sense God's approbation and acceptance. But we will eventually out grow this stage, and the things we once doubted we will appreciate as on going realities and thank God for them rather than beg for them in doubting disbelief.

But not everything we pray about involves asking for something we don't have or thanking God for what we do have; sometimes, like Gary posted, prayer is just how we hang out with God and become better acquainted with unseen realities. As we spend more and more time with God dwelling upon eternal things, bouncing ideas off God, contemplating this and that in His presence, we gradually settle deeper and deeper into the truth. But I don't view this experience as begging and pleading with God, or like Jacob, wrestling with God until we have the assurance we have been forgiven of some grievous sin we've committed lately or a long time ago.

Are we beginning to see eye to eye?