God Answers Prayer!

As born-again Christians, we believe that God is in control and that His will is done. Why, then should we pray?

We should pray because His Word commands us to (Psalm 62:8; Luke 11:9-10; 1 Thessalonians 5:17), as an act of worship pleasing to Him, and because it changes us. Our prayers should not be directed toward changing God’s mind, since we know God does not change (Hebrews 13:8), but to align our mind and heart with the indwelling mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:5).

God always answers the prayers of His children who are right in their heart attitude toward Him (Isaiah 65:24), meaning they are not coming in rebellion or lusting after the flesh (James 4:3), but rather in humble submission, earnestly seeking God’s will and His face. Sometimes He answers “Yes,” sometimes “No,” sometimes “Yes, but in the right time,” and sometimes “No, because what I want to give you is even better than what you have asked for.”

It pleases God to give good and perfect gifts to His children (Luke 11:13), so if we ask Him to meet our needs in accordance with His perfect will, we can expect to be blessed. The clearest example of this is the sinner’s prayer, which is one prayer God will always answer “Yes!” because it is His perfect will that all should be saved. When the lost person realizes he is a sinner, turns away from his sin, and trusts in Christ as the Son of God, the perfect sacrifice for our sins Who died on the cross, was buried, and rose again that we also may have eternal life, God will save him.

However, the blessing we receive from prayer may not always be what we had prayed for, and it may even seem to our limited vantage point to be quite the opposite. When we ask for healing of our loved one who is sick, and that person dies, we may despair that God has not heard our prayer or cared enough for us to answer it as we had hoped. Yet if that person was saved, God has indeed given him perfect healing and perfect peace, and he will use the situation to bring good into the lives of others in ways that we cannot begin to understand until we reach glory (Romans 8:28).

Paul asked God three times to take away his “thorn in the flesh,” a physical ailment that brought him great distress, but that kept his pride in check. God said “No,” because the lesson Paul learned of God’s grace being sufficient was a far greater blessing than physical healing would have been. This lesson enabled him to rejoice and be fruitful even when imprisoned, abandoned, and in other dire straits, because he was relying on God’s strength instead of trusting in his own flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).

God the Father even said “No” to His own Son when Jesus asked that if it were possible, that the cup of suffering would pass from Him, yet the Son yielded to His Father’s will (Matt. 26:39).

God sometimes allows us to go through illness or other storms of life because they bring us closer to Him. If we seek His perfect will, He may sometimes calm the storm, as He did for His disciples in the boat on the troubled sea (Matthew 8: 24-27). But at other times, His perfect answer to our prayer may be to calm us instead, bringing us the peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7) and the fellowship of His suffering that conforms us to the image of His Son (Philippians 3:10).

As we pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, helping us to pray in accordance with God’s will even when we don’t know what to ask for (Romans 8:26). He will teach us to trust Him (Proverbs 3: 5-6), deepening our faith (Mark 11:22-24) as we accept that He knows what we need before we ask Him (Matthew 6:8), and that He will give us what is best for us (Jeremiah 29:11). Thank God for His infinite wisdom and infinite love, so that He answers our prayers in the best possible way!