All things can never be equal in personal relationships. I can never be you for instance. But I do agree that God is no respecter of persons and thus he does not show unfair favoritism in the type of deals he is willing to accept. But the truth is that most people don’t even have enough faith/belief to propose deals to God. If we don’t ask we are 100% certain not to receive a deal with God. I believe that is why Jesus told us to ask and seek for these kinds of favors/interventions as Christians.

7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
(Matt 7: 7)

Huh? What are you talking about Don? Are you saying God must accept every deal that is offered to him? That is just silly.

God can accept or reject any deal he wants just like we can. It all depends on the terms.

If He accepts some deal you propose then to be a just God He has to accept my deal…all things being equal. Like my post said where’s the cut off, you have 2% more faith than me so you get the deal and I don’t.

I haven’t read the comments but I think you are completely wrong in this post. I can’t speak for you, but I and others can and have made deals with God.

If that were true then I’m manipulating God.

This is just a silly statement. If you offer God terms and he accepts them then there is no manipulation involved at all. Of course we can’t force God to accept the terms we offer but he is free to accept any deal we might come up with.

Where does He draw the line?

I dunno. Ask him. But if he is free to choose then he can decide where to draw lines himself.

I do think God is very much in the deal making business. We call them covenants in the church and last time I checked he is all for covenants.

I think the real problem here has something to do with the attitude of the MP’s involved. It’s a shame. I’ve noticed that the church has improved a lot in it’s execution of the missionary program in recent years and I sure hope I am right about that.
I don’t agree with chastizing missionaries for not meeting goals unless it’s because they have been totally goofing off. I also agree that one cannot pray away other’s agencies.

There is a lot more to the book than just what is being discussed here. If my memory serves me correctly, I think the author also talks about being very specific in one’s prayers. That made a big impression on me and changed the way I pray.

Anyway, I always feel sad when I hear those types of mission stories. I agree it’s disillusioning. I just don’t agree that it’s purely the fault of that one book, but I suppose if I had had your experience it would have left a bad taste in my mouth as well.

FWIW, it wasn’t just in one mission where Drawing on the Powers of Heaven has been misused. Two or three adjacent missions in Brazil, at least, had the same issue, and if you google the book you’ll see a couple of references to it by ex-mormons who served in Germany.

So you could ‘offer’ God a deal, “I’ll do x if you do y”. I am sure the Supreme Being has his agency as well. unless you get a response where the you are informed the ‘deal’ is accepted, you really have not made any deals.

Merely receiving what you made a ‘deal’ for does not necessarily mean your ‘deal’ was accepted.

Obviously, there are times the Lord has to say “no”. However, I have learned that many a times there are things that he indeed wishes to bless us with but we are required to either ask for it first, or else live a principle that will qualify us for that blessing.

I have read Von Harrison’s book and when I have applied the principles he discusses in his book, I have seen miracles occur in my life. Setting goals for myself in combination with prayer has helped me to exercise faith. I think it also is a way of showing Heavenly Father how important the desired blessing is to me and what lengths I am willing to go to receive it. When the desired blessing was received, I know that I had much greater gratitude and appreciation for it. It has proved to strengthen my testimony immeasurably.

I can see that using the knowledge contained in Von Harrison’s book in the mission field and then chastizing missionaries for not reaching goals, would be a misuse. However, I would hate for that whole book to be condemned because one MP misused the information.

If certain actions did not make our prayers more efficacious than why have been instructed to at times combine fasting with prayer? Or why do we have temple prayer rolls for that matter? Shouldn’t just one simple prayer be enough then? To me, this whole “dealmaking” idea is not much different than those.