Does God Really Help?

[Anonymous]

I often hear the phrases: "without God on my side, I couldn't have done it," or "it was through God's love and strength that I accomplished this." How is that possible? If, for example, you say God helped you graduate with honors from your University, then how is it non-religious persons have done the same and perhaps done it better than you? If God is so helpful, why isn't he helping you more? I mean, if God helps those who help themselves, why is it that you've been trying your absolute hardest, and with God's help, you've only managed to accomplish mediocre results or fail completely or only succeed really well, some of the time.

I'd say those odds are in league with everyone for everything whether they are religious or not. I mean, if you're in a war, and you're fighting for your family and the protection of the people back home and the other side believes themselves to be doing the exact same and you're BOTH praying to God to protect and keep you each night, who's side is God on? He can't be on both if there is going to be a winner of said war. And if you win this century over "the enemy," and the next, the other side is triumphant over you, "having God on your side," makes no sense at all because he would seem to literally be playing the field.

I remember years ago when I was desperately searching for a job, I went to a resume building seminar where these instructors sat down with you and really worked with you one on one with building a better resume and guiding you towards places you could look, and even setting up interviews (it worked by the way), but I remember them at the middle of the open session asking specific people, "what have you done to help yourself land a job," and when they pointed to this one lady, she said, I've been praying every night.

The instructor said, okay, but I mean, have you applied, have you done your resume, have you gone on interviews," and the lady said, "no, God will find a job for me." That's the crux of it. If God did it, life would be easy. He would do everything, but the whole he helps those who help themselves, is just a fancy way of saying, you do all the work, and give him all the credit---because you could pray for more money, pray for a job, pray that your cancer went away, but without proactively doing anything about those things, we call those people lazy or risking the coffin.

In many ways, God is the ultimate sugar pill. It's given to you, and if you chose to take it, you tell yourself that you can do it, if you've got this pill in you, if you've got God on your side, and you convince yourself to do things that perhaps you wouldn't before and that you'll change and do better and that you will win this time. It's no different than someone believing that a rabbits foot will bring good luck or wearing the same socks they wore on another day that they won.

You both have the same exact belief, that something external will help you accomplish your goals because "it worked before," but those are just odds set about by life. You'll win half the time, fail the other half. If God helps those that truly help themselves, what is the answer for those that don't believe in that, that have found incredible success, yet have done nothing illegal or wrong to get it. You can't blame some devil for them being where they are. They did everything you're doing, but sometimes just better, and without a prayer in sight. If results are the exact same, whether God or a lucky charm or just through hard work and belief that one can do well on their own or with the help of those in their lives, the difference in "sugar pills" is negligible according to results and odds between those that have religion and those that don't.

So does God really help? Yes, if that's your sugar pill of choice, because you believe you can't do it without God, and have convinced your mind as such, but for the non-religious, so does ones lucky socks or the belief that just doing the hard work to succeed in life, can eventually get you where you want to go. If you believe in something---God, yourself, luck, fate---any of us can do it (most of the time, that is).

[Anonymous]

Yep, it's a sugar pill. I think that pretty well sums it up.

Something that always makes me chuckle is how some people will pray for their team to win a game in some sporting event. It's like saying "God, please let me team be your favorite today".

There was a toddler in my neighborhood last year who was very sick. The family asked everyone to pray for her so she would recover, as if God would only allow that if he received enough prayers. Really? Is that how God works?

[myTake Owner]

As for your last example... a good one... think about what that really implies. If your child dies, does that mean God doesn't love you or the child, or perhaps your friends aren't charitable enough to pray or pray hard enough for the child got get better or if they get better for a while, and then later get sick again, have the prayers really worked. Religion has nothing to do with that, other then a belief/hope things will get better. Anyone would want that, and that's fine, but attributing something like health to God and his will, ignores the fact that no matter how religious or not, everything dies sooner or later and disease and death happen to the worst and the best people on earth.

[Gaspuschen]

God only helps those that help themselves. Religion can be a great motivator or hope provider but it is up to the person to do the right thing and to get themselves out.

[HamAndCheese]

It's a perception thing that's also tied in to personal motivation. Personally, I'm not religious so I can't really comment on whether god helps me.

[myTake Owner]

I agree. I personally think that it's all in your mindset. If you believe God works for you, than it does. If you believe that with your hard work and motivation alone, you can find successes in this world, then it works. If you believe that luck/fate has a way of making things happen for you, then it does. It doesn't actually matter that others do or don't believe in what you personally do, because you believe it works whether that's wrong or right--you'll still shape it in your head to work for you.