Sunday, March 18, 2012

God Always Answers Our Prayers

“But true wisdom and power are with God; counsel and understanding are his.“ -- Job 12:13

Have you ever given up on God? Have you ever prayed and prayed and prayed and felt God either didn’t hear you or didn’t care? Has God ever told you “no” when you asked for your heart’s desire?

Welcome to the world of unanswered prayers. It happens to all of us. We ask God for something we really, really want and we don’t get the answer we wanted. Or expected. Because isn’t God supposed to fulfill our requests?

Not really. We’re not here for our own glory but for His. Not that God doesn’t want good things for us. He does. It’s just that sometimes the best answer is the one we don’t want to hear.

Have you ever been thankful that God said “no?” Probably. Most of us can look back and be so very glad that God chose a different spouse for us, a different job, a different road. We’re glad that He knew best. We’re not always glad to admit we were wrong and He was right -- again.

God’s ways are not our ways. How many times have you heard that? It doesn’t make it any less true. He sees the big picture and we only see what is in our immediate world. Our fallen world. Our world where people get sick, where evil runs rampant, where people hurt each other.

For example, God always heals us when we are sick. We are His children and He loves us. Sometimes God takes away the cancer, repairs the heart, fixes whatever is broken, while we still live on this earth. Other times God calls us home for healing. But He always heals. We forget that sometimes.

God also always provides us a way no matter the circumstances. We get in a hurry and try to fix it ourselves. We believe someone else rather than waiting for a word from God. Or we take a different path rather than the path He has chosen for us. We’ll find that out. And He’ll pick us up and help us back to the right path, the one He chose for us.

So does God always answer our prayers? Absolutely. We just don’t always hear what He has to say. We’re too busy telling Him what we want from Him to hear what He thinks about it all. Where is that relationship when we treat God as a vending machine rather than a Heavenly Father who loves us so very much?

God is filled with wisdom and caring, with kindness and understanding. He is all-powerful and all-wonderful. And He wants us to come to Him with requests and concerns. But He also wants us to hear Him and follow Him. So take time to listen, really listen, to God. He’ll bless you in ways you can’t begin to imagine.