When Our Prayers Don't Get Answered

Over the holiday break, I was tooling around on the computer while in the back ground a Christmas movie was on.  I wasn’t paying too much attention until I heard…”I stopped believing in Santa when I asked for something and didn’t get it.”  That phrase stopped me in my tracks and I thought:  How often do we pray, not get an answer, and think God isn’t real?

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes forget that God created me, our whole universe, and is omniscient (knowing everything).  When we are praying for something and want that prayer answered, I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact that God already knows what we need before we need it.  Just because He doesn’t answer a prayer doesn’t mean He isn’t listening, doesn’t care or exist.  Perhaps the prayer isn’t what you need, but what you want.  Maybe He has something better in store, or He wants to take you through the valley so when you get to the mountain peak you appreciate what you see.  He could be using this season to equip you for some future event.   We are called to trust God, even when the answer to our prayer isn’t what we were hoping for.

Parents, how often do you tell your children no and don’t give them an explanation, which frustrates them to no end (much like when God tells us no or wait). Perhaps, you want them to wait for something better, or the friends they want to hang out with are bad news and you know where that road goes.  Whatever the case may be, your wisdom guides your NO.   The same is true of God and his infinite wisdom.  Isaiah 55:8-9 states: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”    Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight”

Are you having a hard time with unanswered prayers, trusting God or faith?  Pray and ask God to help you with trusting Him and His timing.  Ask for faith!

Father, I humbly come before in.  Please help me to trust YOU, Your timing, and Your plan for my life.  Give me the faith to put all my trust in you.  I pray for unwavering faith if a prayer goes unanswered. Help me to keep my eyes on You and know that you will make my paths straight.  I pray this in your Precious name.  Amen