Prayer Request is Attacked by Unbelievers

When I read this story I found it hard to believe. Why would people be so hateful they would make harsh comments about a famous actor's prayer requests? Have we ever seen such lack of compassion in our nation before? 

Go to the link and search for Chris Pratt.

Chris Pratt asks for prayer for a friend and gets hammered.

As a Spirit-filled Christian I thoroughly believe that prayer can and often does impact our health and welfare. In fact, the research is clear that faith, prayer, and God's love are life giving.  One study shows, 

STUDY

A new study shows that elderly persons who attended religious services every week were 46 percent less likely to die during the six-year study period than people who attended church less frequently or not at all.

The study, published in the July/August issue of Journal of Gerontology, lends to the growing belief that a connection exists between religious involvement and better health. The lead researcher, psychiatrist Harold Koenig of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., says the effects of regular religious attendance were so strong that he equated it to that of not smoking cigarettes.

"Participating in religious services is associated with significant health benefits in elderly people, even when you take into account the fact that religious people tend to start out with better health practices and more social support," Koenig says.
The findings are based on the study of about 4,000 elderly people living in North Carolina. Of the 1,177 people who died during the six-year study, 22.9 percent were frequent church-goers compared with 37.4 percent who did not attend church regularly.

People who regularly attended church also showed better abilities to cope with life's ups and downs and were less likely to engage in destructive health habits, such as smoking and excessive drinking.

AIDS Relief

Certain psychological factors appear to promote survival in HIV-positive individuals, researchers have found—optimism, life involvement, emotional expression, a collaborative relationship with one’s physician. And now another psychological attribute seems to enhance survival in such persons as well. It is religion.

This finding comes from Gail Ironson, M.D., Ph.D., a psychiatrist and psychologist with the University of Miami, and her colleagues. They reported it at the recent annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society in Savannah, Ga.


Dr. Ironson and her coworkers explored the religious outlooks of these two groups. First the subjects received an "I Worship" questionnaire that dealt with such issues as view of God, view of others, and belief in the possibility of an afterlife. The subjects also received the COPE test, which explored how the subjects had coped when they had found out that they were HIV positive and whether religion was one of the tools that they had used in their coping with that discovery.

The long-term survivors were more likely to report participating in religious activities such as attending services and praying or meditating; to have a more compassionate, respectful view of others; and to use religion as a strategy to cope with their illness. All results were statistically significant, the researchers reported.

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Unbelievers welcome