Ask Mr. Religion
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What did your prayers consist of exactly in this situation?It was something I have prayed for and hoped towards for years, and it was not as a Calvinist.
Were they a plea to God to wrestle with that person's free will such that they would choose rightly?
Were they a plea to God to woo that person such that they might eventually "see the light"?
Were they a plea to God to order things as they happen—since God does not truly know what will happen until they happen—such that things will fall out favorably, albeit these "falling out of things" dare not impinge upon one's Holy of Holies, that is, their own autonomous free will?
Perhaps, yours were prayers that the will of God be done and that your prayers be aligned to the will of God? After all, if we do not pray in accordance with the will of God, why is God obliged to even hear such a prayer?
If so, then we need a more fulsome understanding of exactly what we mean when speaking of the will of God. This is necessary because God commands many things that we ought to do, yet we do not, but there are things that God actually wills volitionally, that we cannot not do otherwise (Deut. 29:29). In fact, in these matters the fact that we cannot not do otherwise in no way implies we had no choice, rather it implies that God's providence included all our liberty of spontaneity and concurred with the same.
So, yes we are to be praying always, the second Person of the Triune Godhead, the Holy Spirit, aiding us often when we groan, unable to give voice our prayers. But to use that "praying always" as an "out" to escape examination of our prayers is to deny what we ought to be doing when we pray aright.
AMR