To Pray or Not to Pray

If you have ever cried out to God in need, you have a hope that your prayer will be heard and answered. Sometimes the prayer does not get answered the way we hoped or planned, and that can cause us to doubt God's ability to answer our prayers. Praying for someone to be healed of a sickness or for some situation to not happen or go away are prayers that have been prayed countless times. Some are answered the way we hope and some are not answered the way we hope. The problem we often struggle with is that we do not have all knowledge, and our perspective is limited by our own concept of the time we are in. That does mean that we should stop praying and believing in the power of prayer but should cause us to further trust in the God who is all-wise, all-knowing, all-present, and all good. Feeling like God is not answering our prayers can be caused by three possible reasons. One reason could be that God is saying not yet. Waiting on the Lord is often tough because we want to see answers immediately, but all throughout scripture, we are called to wait on the Lord. Waiting on the Lord needs to be founded in a belief that God is good, and He loves us. If we lose sight of that, the waiting becomes painful and difficult. The second reason for prayers not being answered is that we have broken fellowship with God due to sin. Scripture tells us in James 5:16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” We are only made righteous through the blood of Jesus, and the only way to be forgiven is to confess our sins in the name of Jesus. The third reason is that we do not truly believe that God will answer our prayer. One of the saddest stories in the Bible is when Jesus returns home, and no one believes Jesus is the Messiah. Because of that the Bible records that Jesus was unable to perform miracles because they had no faith.

                The other side of this is that we all have had God answer one of our prayers. Depending on how many times that has happened probably determines our level of faith and belief that God will answer our prayers. I want to be a person whose faith is strong in believing that praying to an all-powerful God is much better than trying to come up with my own solution because I believe God can do all things. King David was known as “man after God’s own heart.” If you were to re-read the stories of David in the bible, you would see that when he prayed and sought the Lord, things went much better. When He used his own reasoning, things did not go so well. So, are you praying believing God will come through with an answer or do you struggle with wondering if God cares or even hears you? Check your heart, confess your sins, and believe that God is good and that He wants to answer our prayers. We need to be people that believe prayer works, and trust God to give us what we need.