Does everything you have faith in come true?
Question:
Hi sir,
I was just wondering if everything you have faith in comes true. The Bible says faith can move mountains. Is that always the case? What if the thing that I wanted to have happen wasn't meant to happen, but I still had faith in it?
Another question is: You know how when you pray for others, it will happen to you? So, if I pray for someone's health, I will have good health, and the same goes for bad things. If I prayed that something bad happened to someone, would it happen to me instead?
Answer:
How you describe prayer, you place yourself in charge of the universe. You are basically saying that God has no say in matters but grants prayers if the person believes it strongly enough. Instead, what we read in the Bible is that our prayers must be according to God's will. "This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him" (I John 5:14-15).
Jesus twice made a point that when we ask something from God, we must have confidence (faith) but that doesn't override the fact that what we are asking must first be according to God's will. "Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, 'Why could we not drive it out?' And He said to them, 'Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you'" (Matthew 17:19-20). Jesus wasn't telling his disciples to rearrange the landscape. He was using a hyperbole to illustrate his point. Even things that seem impossible will be granted by God. There is still the unlying assumption that what is being asked is according to God's will, but Jesus is also telling the disciples to be confident in what they are requesting, even if it doesn't seem like it could happen. James makes a similar point. "But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways" (James 1:5-8). Asking God for something that you don't think He will do or isn't able to do is a useless task.
There isn't a verse that says what we ask on behalf of others will happen to us as well. The closest I could come up with is: "For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions" (Matthew 6:14-15). This isn't about praying for others. Jesus states that God won't forgive you if you aren't willing to do the same for other people. You can't expect benefits from God that you aren't willing to grant to other people.
Your example of asking for bad things to happen to other people illustrates the misuse of prayer. You are asking God to go against His will for people just to satisfy your grudges.
