PRAYER AS A WAY OF TRYING TO BE IN CONTROL AND FEELING YOU ARE IN CONTROL

"A problem shared, is a problem halved."  When you tell somebody that you have a terrible problem the problem remains terrible and maybe even worse than you think.  Yet telling somebody makes you feel significantly better.  Why?  Probably because you feel supported, because telling somebody is an act of self-help anyway, and maybe now you see the problem clearer.  Nobody can have the power to help you or get help for you unless you tell them.  So you really are reducing the problem.  A person may tell God and feel God knows anyway.  Yet this does not help in the way telling a person does.  I wonder how truthful those who say God helps when they talk to him in prayer actually are.  It would be dangerous if people were really able to get the same effect from telling him if he is not real as they do from telling a real person who can make a difference.

The need for control is our fundamental drive.  We are not happy without control and we don't have it we will tell ourselves we have control.

God is the one in control if he lives?

Submitting to God's will looks like resignation.  It is not.  It is just another way of feeling in control in fact the strongest way.

It is a myth that people trying to force control are the strongest egoists.  It is too self-defeating and risky for it to be that.  Everybody knows.

Active control and passive control are different forms of control - the latter needs no action except assuming that the future is already controlled for us by God or as good as.  So passive control depends on actively deciding to make that assumption.  People may see control by praying a lot for a change.  But in fact just saying, "God your will be done", is another way of getting control through prayer.  This attitude is a coping mechanism - it is about feeling control even if there is no real control.

It is selfish arrogance to feel control when you do not control.