Answers to Prayer

April 3

“When I pray, my prayers just bounce back and slap me in the face.” “God is too busy running the universe to bother with little old me.” “Other people might be able to prevail upon God in prayer, but I’ve never been one of those lucky ones.” “God is deaf to me, in spite of all my praying.”

Does any of that sound familiar? Perhaps you’ve uttered a similar disparaging remark a time or two in your life when you didn’t get an immediate response to your prayers—in the manner in which you’d hoped to receive it. If not you, maybe someone you know has thrown up his hands in despair of ever receiving an answer to his prayers.

Well, sometimes God’s answer is, ‘No.’ If we consider that as an option, then every prayer we’ve ever lifted Heavenward has received an answer. How does the negative response from the Throne where all power and mercy dwell line up with the Lord’s promise that we could ask in His name and it would be done? (John 15:7) Sometimes we forget that Jesus prefaced that promise with the words, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you…”

The beloved Apostle states the matter again in I John 5:14, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” Our assumption of a blanket promise is off base. God will never answer a prayer that is contrary to His law or His honor. He will never reward our selfishness. His heart of love and His adherence to justice require that He not only develop our character and strengthen our faith through His answers, but also that He maintains His own integrity.