Unanswered Prayers

Chances are that if you've prayed more than once in the past, you probably feel like you've had some unanswered prayers - I know I used to think that! But I've recently realized that there is no such thing as an unanswered prayer (when you are a Christian anyway).

I would like to challenge you to think a little more deeply about prayers that you feel are still unanswered. God always answers your prayers - all of them. And it's great when you get to see the answer first hand! When you receive unexpected money to pay your bills, or something else happens to solve a problem you have after you've prayed about it, it makes you happy and further solidifies the belief that God is good. But when we don't see the answer to our prayers that we can become disheartened.

This is when it's important to remember that it's not because God didn't answer your prayer, He simply didn't answer it the way you expected. There are more possible answers to prayers than you could possibly think of, but some of the possibilities you should think about are:

• The answer is to be patient because it's not the right time yet for things to change.
• The answer is something you perceive as negative in the moment, but will later realize that it was the best thing that could have happened to you.
• And definitely more often than we'd like: the answer is "no."

These are just as much answers to prayers as are miracles. Part of the reason we don't always get our prayers answered like we want them to be is because we're asking for the wrong things. Who are we to say what the answer to our prayers should be? Do we really know what's best for us? Most of us would like to think we do, but I bet that if we got everything we wanted, we would end up a miserable mess. Who better than God to decide what the best possible answer to our prayers should be? So why do we keep asking Him for what we think we want, instead of asking Him for the ability to discern His will and accept it as being the best possible thing that could happen, even if we don't yet understand why that is so?

And unfortunately for us, there are probably even prayers that will go seemingly unanswered for our whole lives. It may just be that some of our prayers won't be answered until after we've already passed away. But I'm willing to bet that when things like that happen, we will still be able to see our prayers get answered while we're up in Heaven. And I think we'll be rewarded for remaining faithful even when we don't like God's answer, or don't understand it.

All prayers are answered. And they are answered with the best answer possible - whether it's immediate or lifetimes away, whether we understand it or not, and even when the answer is "no."