Does God answer our prayers? Yes! Does God give us what we want? Sometimes. Why only sometimes? Why not all the time? Because we don’t know everything and God does. Because God declares, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”1 We are not God. That’s the first lesson to learn about praying. But there are many lessons.
Here’s another. The best explanation to the question Why doesn’t God answer my prayers? is the analogy Jesus told regarding fathers and children. He said, “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask you?”2 Okay. But if that is the logic then if the son asks for bread, God should give it to him, right? Not necessarily.
Remember, Jesus says even evil men know how to give good gifts. The evil men might want to appease the son and give him the gift that looks good. The evil men might want to be regarded as loving parents. But God’s way of giving is “much more” than evil men’s ways. His ways are “higher,” and he “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.”3 God will only give a good gift to the child who prays, if it is the best gift for the child. Not everything we pray for is the best thing. That’s what we don’t understand. We believe that what we are asking for is a good thing. God knows “much more” and what he knows is far better, and that’s why some of our prayers appear to be unanswered. But they are not. God answers all prayers. That’s a second lesson to learn about prayer.
Here’s a third lesson. Jesus encouraged us to pray. A lot! He said, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”4 Every prayer is answered—but perhaps not in the way we expect it to be. Look carefully. Jesus says we need to ask, but he does not say we will get what we ask for. He says an answer will be given. The answer could be yes or no or not now. Jesus also says that when we seek, we will find—but it may not be exactly what we are hoping to find! However, he promises it will be better, “higher” and “much more” than our original idea. And then Jesus says that when we knock, a door will be opened but he does not say it will be the door we were expecting! What we can expect is that he will not lead us where he does not want us to go.
That’s why it is imperative to pray! We don’t know everything, but God does. If we go to him in prayer about everything, then he will give us everything that we need—which will probably be quite different from things we want. If we don’t pray, then we might get what we want, but it will not necessarily be what God wants—which would be “much more.” If we continue to pray, eventually we might begin to see what we really need and not be so disappointed if we do not get what we prayed for! And then we will understand why Jesus prayed, “Yet not what I will, but what you will.”5
That’s another lesson to learn about prayer. We will pause here, however, and perhaps take some time to pray.
1Isaiah 55:9 2Matthew 7:9-11 3Ephesians 3:20 4Matthew 7:7 5Mark 14:36