Do you ever feel as if you pray and pray, only for your heart of hearts to seemingly fall on deaf ears? Have you begged and pleaded, and sincerely petitioned God to move in your favor, and come to the (false) conclusion that He doesn’t even care?
I have. I am not going to lie. I have prayed for everything from healing for myself or a loved one to finding a husband to winning the lottery, and everything in between. And, God has been faithful in many things!
But, despite my desire to serve God, and live a life that glorifies Him, I have often gotten off track. We all have, if we are honest. It is easy to get caught up in worldly things, and blur the lines between serving the Lord and serving ourselves. It is easy to take Mark 11:24 at its face value, without balancing it with the rest of scripture, too!
My walk with the Lord hasn’t always been straight and narrow. I am a sinner saved by HIS GRACE. The last two years, though, have brought tremendous growth in my relationship with Him. I am so incredibly grateful that not only can I go to him with my daily struggles, but that He is actually walking through them with me.
I am learning that when I pray to ASK for God to move on my behalf – once I give it to the Lord to work out – that I need to avoid the impulse to take it back and do it my own way! That is lesson number one. It took me a long time, and many times learning the hard way, to understand that God’s ways are not my ways, and His timing is not my timing.
A good example of what I am talking about is the story of Abraham, who God promised a son to. When Sarah didn’t bear him a son, he solved the problem in his own way by bearing a child with Sarah’s servant, Hagar. This was a disaster, and the fallout can still be observed today. In God’s own time, He did eventually answer Abraham’s prayer by giving Abraham and Sarah a son. It was in God’s timing, when He saw it best for them… and, I might note, when it was a far more miraculous situation that brought Glory to God (because Sarah was barren and very old).
A while back, I started looking into all of the many possible reasons that peoples’ prayers seem to go unanswered, and have put together this AWESOME LIST (if I do say so myself) of attitudes, behaviors, and things that may hinder our prayers. The bible is very clear on many of these items, but we don’t often think about all of this when we are in the middle of need (want). This list is not intended to be a comprehensive list, but rather, to identify the big things that have revealed themselves in my own life. I do not intend to imply to know what God knows, or fully understand His will.
Here are some of the reasons why God doesn’t answer our prayers in the way that we, in our limited ability, see fit.
WE ARE SO SELFISH – Who ARE We Serving, After All? What does God really mean in passages where He tells us that He will give us what we ask for? Surely, we can’t be naive enough to think that he will give us ANYTHING. We know this, because we don’t get everything we ask for. But, here it is in His Word, in texts like Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it will be given to you”, and Isaiah 65:24: “Before you call I will answer, while you are still speaking, I will hear.”
Another part of the equation, that we often miss is that we must ask “according to His will” 1 John 5:14. “…if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” That narrows things down a bit, doesn’t it?
So, it comes right down to the question – who are we serving? Are we still conformed to the pattern of this world, or are we transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will Romans 12:2? Our will needs to line up with His will, and we will be golden.
Worship, Worship, Worship – We are MADE to worship. Isaiah 43:7 tells us that we are made for His glory. Worshiping is a big part of what we will be doing in eternity Revelation 4:9-11! Asking the Lord of all to move his hand on our behalf, without worship, smacks of a one way relationship, and seems self serving.
James 4:10 tells us to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift us up. WONDERFUL! This is an absolutely beautiful part of our prayer life.
Are We Living In Unconfessed Sin? – Consider John 9:31, which tells us that God does not listen to sinners. OUCH! Read it for yourselves, because the verse goes on to say that He listens to the godly person who does His will. That answers a LOT of questions, without elaboration.
Even in the Psalms, we are told that God doesn’t withhold any good thing from those whose walk is blameless Psalm 84:11. I don’t know about you, but this makes me repent EVERY TIME. Are you walking blamelessly? If not, surrender to Him. He may actually be waiting for you to get back in line with His will before He acknowledges your prayers.
My challenge is for us all to examine our lives for unconfessed sin. Are we hanging onto treasured and cherished sin that we disobediently refuse to give up? Let it go.
Forgiveness Is Critical. Most of us know that we are only hurting ourselves when we hold on to unforgiveness. It is worse than simply keeping us bitter, though. Refusing to forgive others who have wronged us means that God will not forgive us, therefore will not hear us. (Matthew 6:12, Mark 11:25, and Ephesians 4:32). Consider the parable in Matthew 18:21-35, as an illustration of how much that God hates the sin of unforgiveness.
And, when Jesus teaches us how to pray (Matthew 6:9-13), he makes a point of connecting our request for forgiveness from God to our forgiveness of others, right after our request for our daily bread.
Do We Give Up And Lose Heart? Pray Without Ceasing. One of the reasons our prayers are not being answered, is because we stop praying. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says to pray continually. Philippians 4:6 tells us not to be anxious, but thankfully make our requests to God. The parable of the widow in Luke 18 begins with Jesus telling the disciples that they should always pray and not give up.
God Is Eternally Minded. The world tells us that everything is good, as long as we are happy. This is a lie, but is easy for Christians to buy into. It is seductive. But, happiness does not equal goodness. Not from an eternal salvation standpoint. God has our best in mind from an ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE, and like the good Father that He is, God knows what is best for us. If we are asking for things that “make us happy” in the here and now, we might get vetoed by the Almighty. Check out Matthew 7:11, Jeremiah 29:11, and Romans 8:27-32.
TIMING IS EVERYTHING. Not only can God see down the road for us, but He can see around the corner. As a matter of fact, the best way to describe the extent of how He knows our future, is to imagine watching a parade. For us, time is like watching the parade go by from the curb, beautiful float by marching band by dance team. FOR GOD, however, time is like watching the very same parade from a blimp above. He can see the beginning, the end, and all of the middle parts at the same time. It is tough for us to wrap our minds around it, in our finite experience of time. 2 Peter 3:8 tells us that with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. Let that sink in.
This is exactly why we should trust God’s timing, instead of our own.
How’s Your Faith? I am going to just leave these two verses here. No commentary needed.
James 1:5-8 – “ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”
Hebrews 11:6 – And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.
God Often Has Something BETTER Than We Are Asking For – YES! He is One who can do “immeasurably more” than all we can ask or imagine Ephesians 3:20. Because this is the case, it is time for us to stop getting bent out of shape when God doesn’t run to give us what we think are our heart’s desires. More than I can even imagine or think up, by an amount that can’t be measured? Yes, please! Yes, Lord, yes.
Sometimes We Are Asking For Security, When He Wants Us To Walk In Faith. The Lord’s Prayer shows us to ask for our daily bread. DAILY. Not a month’s worth or a year’s worth at a time. We can learn from Jesus’s example that we shouldn’t pray for a period of security, but just what we need for the day. Matthew 6:9-13.
He Allows Certain Things In Our Lives So That We Will Grow – God does this so that we can not only grow as a person, but more importantly, in our relationship with Him. If we are praying for rescue from a painful situation, we should be looking for the lesson, and become more like HIM.
Much is said in scripture about how God refines us. It has to do with fire, which we can think of as affliction. Isaiah 48:10 says, “See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” 1 Peter 1:7 tells us, “These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” Other references to how God uses trials and affliction to purify us can be found in Zechariah 13:9, Malachi 3:1-5 (great passage!), Job 23:10, Proverbs 17:3, Psalm 66:10, and more.
After reading these passages, we can’t always expect that God will make life easy for us.
BE BOLD AGAINST THE ENEMY – Are we letting the enemy keep a foothold in our lives? It is important to remember the authority we have in Jesus. Luke 10:19 tells us, “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” The new testament church was bold and powerful. Jesus gave us dominion over the earth, and power and authority over the enemy. Oh, what different lives we might be living if we were bold against our enemy!
If the idea of exercising this power is foreign to you, I highly recommend the recent movie, War Room. Though it is a movie, and wraps things up with Hollywood neatness, it is a wonderful model of what it is to be a prayer warrior.
I hope that these words have answered some of your heart’s questions, and that God’s own word has spoken to your heart and inspired you to a closer relationship with Him.
While preparing this article, God has really been speaking to me. Time to go spend some time with Him! I hope that you do, too.
Bettie
Brutal Bettie 