Does God Show Favorites?

I hear people bear testimony and thank God all the time for blessing that they received, but these blessing came at the expense of other not being blessed. Does God really show favorites like this? With some of the “blessing” that we ask for, we are in competition with other of God’s children. How does God decide who to bless, or does he even get involved at all? Here is an example of what I mean. Suppose you and several of your co-workers are all eligible for a certain promotion at work. It means more money, better hours, and the ever popular office with a window. This is something that you desire so you ask Heavenly Father for it. The twist is that all the eligible co-workers also ask Heavenly Father for this blessing as well. So how does Heavenly Father decide? Does he go by whose the most righteous? Who “needs” it the most? (assuming that any of them “need” it at all) Or maybe he doesn’t get involved at all? If he is going to get involved, how is he going to ensure that the person he wants to bless gets the promotion? What if the boss is not in tune with Heavenly Father?
So what do you think?

A Trivial Pursuit?

I've always been taught that I should involve God in everything I do. To quote from the New Era, "The Lord wants us to pray about whatever concerns us. Nothing is unimportant or trivial if it is a concern in our lives." Is it true?

As I was getting ready for church today, I decided that I wanted to wear a certain sweater. I had a problem though. I have only one tie that matches this sweater and I couldn't find it anywhere. Now I've been taught all my life that if I've lost something I should pray and Heavenly Father will help me find it. In fact I've probably heard hundreds of stories during my Mormon existence testifying of experiences like this, from primary to sacrament meetings. I've done it myself. I've prayed about lost items and they have subsequently been found. So I'm getting ready to ask Heavenly Father to help me find my tie, when for no reason a thought popped into my head. I thought about all the people who were probably praying at that very moment, many of them that needed Heavenly Fathers help much more than I did. About 16 thousand children die every day from starvation. That's one child every five seconds. In the five minutes or so that Heavenly Father might have helped me find my tie, 60 children would die because they were hungry.
I felt pretty selfish and stupid. What a trivial thing. A tie. Children are starving and I'm worried about a tie. I just couldn't justify asking Heavenly Father to help me find my tie. I told Heavenly Father to help his children, I didn't need that tie.
I wore a different outfit.
Should I have prayed about my tie? Was I showing a lack of faith? I mean, He is all powerful. I'm sure he can help more than one person at the same time. What do you think?

Mighty Prayer

Interesting question. If God took a day off would anybody notice? At first glance we may only be able to look at this as a hypothetical question, but let us start at the beginning, well the beginning as we know it, “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made” (Genesis 2:2) What do we consider this resting to be? Did God take this day off? Both anciently and modernly this day of rest was turned into a day of worship. Now how do believers give this day off to God? We pester him more than any other day! Think about it. In a typical meeting how many thoughtless prayers are uttered?

Big breath. Heavenly Father we thank you for this day, and all our many blessings .Another big breath. Bless us with your spirit, Bless the Missionaries, Bless the Gordon Hinckley guy. Bless BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Now these meetings are held all over the world. I can only begin to wonder how many prayers like this are said on any given Sunday. Would it make any difference if we said these prayers or not? If at the end of a day for some strange reason did not follow the traditions of our Fathers to pray so travel home with no harm or accident, would anybody get hurt?

I believe that as long as people are praying and they believe there prayers are getting answered than they are correct. The power of positive thinking. So if God took a day off they really wouldn’t notice. This statement can well be made for 99 out of 100 prayers. But I also believe that there is a way that prayers can be heard and this is what the Scriptures talk of when they speak about a mighty prayer.

If God took a day off, would we notice?

So what I guess this comes down to is how involved is God in our lives. It seems like one Sunday I'll go to church and the speaker in sacrament meeting will stand up, read Alma 34:17-27, and tell me about how I need to pray to God about everything. God cares about everything I'm doing and nothing is too trivial. Another Sunday I'll go to church and the speaker in sacrament meeting will tell me about how they were trying to decide which of two jobs to take and that they just couldn't get an answer. Finally they "got an answer" and the answer was, it doesn't matter. Both jobs are just fine, you decide. Then the speaker goes on to talk about how there are somethings that just don't matter to God and then comes the inevitable example, "like what you're going to have for breakfast. God doesn't care. You just have to make that decision on your own."
Am I going to the same church here or what? Pray to God about everything. No, Don't pray to God about "stupid" things. What are "stupid" things? I know these are kind of two extremes but hopefully they illustrate my point. How involved is God?
Myself I tend to lean toward the second example. I think God definitely gets involved when he needs too. But aren't we here to progress. How can I do that if he is always involved. Don't I need to learn to do things on my own. I guess I take the weight lifter/spotter approach. If the spotter is the one lifting all the weight, the spotter is the one getting stronger. But if the spotter is there just to put a finger on the bar now and then when the weight lifter needs a bit of help, then it is the weight lifter that is getting stronger. I look at us as the weight lifters and God as the Spotter. If we are ever going to get stronger, we need to be lifting the weight most of the time.
So what do you think? How involved is God in this world. If God took a day off, would we notice? Would we notice on a personal level? How about the world? Would everything just quit functioning?