Have All Your Prayers Been Answered?
The failure to recognize and to trust that God is both WILLING and ABLE to answer your petitions, amounts to little more than wishful thinking and talking to oneself. The results are nearly universally predictable…unanswered prayers and God gets the blame!
Fortunately there is a better way! Our prayer life needn’t be erratically unpredictable and uncertain like the government. Neither should it be a shot in the dark, hit or miss, maybe, maybe not kind of thing.
The only way to realistically put it all together is to look for answers in the Bible. You can begin right this minute to develop a more fruitful prayer life and a great place to start is by understanding Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)…
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Faith, which is sometimes rendered believing although a more accurate interpretation would be trust, is our bold confidence and quiet assurance that God, who cannot lie, will always do precisely what He says He will do, even though we have not yet seen it! If we are unable to arrive at this affirmation, we will pretty much be talking to ourselves because God’s requirement, first and foremost, is that we BELIEVE THAT HE CAN DO IT!!
Beyond this directive there are other practical aspects of one’s prayer life that should be learned and then placed into immediate application. The epistle of James contains just the type of practical information on prayer that I’m talking about.
I am going to list a few reasons that often cause some people to have difficulty getting answers to prayer.
#1 - You haven’t yet prayed…
James 4:2 (NIV) You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.
This should be intuitive, and may also sound totally ridiculous, but if you never ask Him for anything, why in the world would you be surprised if He doesn’t give you something you never asked for!
#2 - You have doubts that God will answer you…
James 1:5-7 (NIV)
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.
#3 - Your prayer misses the mark and/or your motives are wrong…
James 4:3 (NASB20)
You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, so that you may spend what you request on your pleasures.
Be careful not to ask for something that God already said He won’t do. Then our prayers miss the mark. We should ensure that our requests are in line with what He will do! Otherwise we either get wrong results or NO RESULTS! As for motivation, the Bible is clear, our requests via prayer should never be, “so that you may spend what you request on your pleasures”.
Psalm 54:2 (NIV) Hear my prayer, O God; listen to the words of my mouth.
Our prayer should always be with excitement and great believing expectation and confidence that not only will God hear us, but that He will respond!
Colossians 4:2 (NIV) Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.
We are to DEVOTE OURSELVES TO PRAYER. That sounds like more than a hit or miss endeavor to me. We are also told to be WATCHFUL and THANKFUL as well. All of these are necessary aspects of a vibrant, effective and powerful prayer life!
Romans 12:12 (NIV) Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Our fervent hope and expectation is the promised return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! It is the anchor of our souls as stated in Hebrews 6:19 and the source of our joyfulness. But wait…there’s more! In addition, we are instructed to be patient in the afflictions that will surely come in this life, and finally we are reminded once again to be faithful in prayer.
When you put all this together what you’ll discover is that your personal prayer life will be bigger, better, stronger, and more fruitful!
Why not begin right now and live as though your prayers have…