Will God Answer Your Prayer?

When someone asks me if I believe God will answer their prayers, I don’t say, “Just be a good person and he will.” 

We all know what it's like to pray an urgent prayer that God seems not to answer. But as a psychologist who has walked with Christ for many years, I've learned that God gives one of three answers to our prayers: Yes,  No, or Wait! 

A child can ask a parent for candy, and lots of it. The parent can say, "Yes, just one piece." Or, "No, it's bad for your teeth." Or, "Wait until Halloween, and then you can have your fill."

We are God's children. We do well to learn trust and patience in praying to God. Too much of a demand quality to our prayer means we treat God like our personal slave: "If you don't keep my grandmother from dying I'll hate your forever!" But too little expectation means we don't trust God at all: "God, I know you've got more important things to do than pay attention to me." Scripture counsels a midpoint between these extremes:

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him" (1 John 5:14-15).

If you want to develop more awareness about how God answers your prayers, I suggest you begin taking risks by initiating genuine conversations with God. And watching how the Lord responds.

What happens when you risk a spontaneous little prayer? When you include the Lord in your inner life? Over the years you learn to invite him into every imaginable situation. But there’s something else. Little heartfelt prayers fulfill the Lord’s desire for companionship with you!

 

Answers to prayer vary as much as blooming flowers. Some are like pansies that blossom overnight. Others are like bulbs planted in winter soil, which seem not to grow at all; then springtime comes and they erupt with life. Still others are like roses that require care over many years, but their delicate petals and distinctive fragrance make them well worth the effort. Whether God’s reply is quick or seemingly takes forever, you can count on a response.

A Little Prayer of Longing

Gwen made an appointment to see me at a college where I was teaching. A student in my Psychology of Religion course, she had met the assignments, but stayed silent in class.

When she arrived for the appointment, I invited her in and offered her a seat. My desk lamp cast soft light on her frowning face.

“I want to talk about something you said in class the other day,” she said.

I nodded my encouragement.

"You said that God wants a real relationship with each of us. That he knows us by name. That he wants to walk and talk with us.”

“Yes, I believe that’s true,” I said.

“Well, I have a problem. I was raised in a Christian home and went to church all my life. But I don’t feel close to God. It seems like the Lord is way too big to really know about me. I feel like I’m this little grain of sand who shouldn’t bother him.”

“Is it like you know God loves humanity, but why would he want Gwen as his personal friend?”

“Exactly. I’m so ordinary. I’m not that good in school and half the time I feel bored in church. I’m not anything special.”

“Yet you care enough about your relationship with the Lord to come here and talk about it.”

“I guess so. I don’t know what else to do.”

Gwen,” I said, “I wonder if you would dare to ask the Lord to come to you in a private way that you can really recognize. Something that would show that he knows you.”

“You mean just talk to him?” she asked, eyebrows arching.

I nodded. “Maybe you could say a little prayer right now, just the way you are talking to me.”

“Well, this feels kind of awkward, but I’ll try,” she said.

We bowed our heads.

After a moment of silence, she said, “God, I have felt lonely for so long. I go through all the motions of being religious, but I don’t feel you in my life. Please show me that you love me. Help me know you’re really there. Amen.”

When I looked up, Gwen was dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex. I sensed that she was opening her heart to God in this little prayer. I wondered how Christ would answer her.

A week later there was a knock on my office door. When I opened it, there stood Gwen with a grin on her face. 

She handed me a bright red greeting card and said, “Go ahead and open it.”

Puzzled, I flipped open the card. The printed message read, “Our friendship will last forever.” Underneath, written in beautiful handwriting, were the words, “Dear Gwen, you don’t know me, but the Lord told me to buy this card and send it to you. He said for you to read Isaiah 43:1. Best wishes.” It was unsigned.

“This card was in my campus mailbox yesterday,” Gwen explained. “I looked up the verse in Isaiah and it says, ‘I have called you by name, you are mine.’”

My heart caught. “And you still don’t know who sent it?”

 “No. But I do know that God loves me!”

What worked for Gwen will work for you: going straight to the Lord when you face a lonely disconnect from God. Like Gwen, you can risk praying to the Lord by "casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you" (1 Pet 5:7 NKJV).

All of Christianity in Two Simple Sentences

Two simple sentences capture the heart of Christian faith:

1) God in Jesus Christ entered human history for a relationship with you.

2) Your relationship with Christ encompasses your personality and entire human nature.

If you took time to read a hundred theology books drawn from the two hundred denominations within Christianity, you would find a hundred different opinions on what constitutes the Christian faith.

That’s why I want to keep it simple! 

I have led many people into personal relationships with Jesus and witnessed their surprise at his love for them. With sadness, though, I have watched some grow lukewarm later on, almost to the degree that they filled their minds with Christianese. In becoming religious they lost the adventure of walking with Christ.

I now understand that sometimes the Christian religion, while needed for presenting Christ to the world, can actually cool a person's heart toward the Lord. This shift from vital encounter to mental belief system did not occur with the disciples. They kept their personal conversations and emotional connection going with Jesus right through his Resurrection, Ascension into heaven, and indwelling in their inner cores through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, they knew the same kind of fear and loneliness that you and I know. But they kept talking and praying to the Lord, entrusting him with their needs, struggles, and occasional misgivings.

So I encourage you to keep it simple. Don’t get carried away with religious nitpickiness.

Learn what you will and expand what you learn, but keep renewing your love for Christ by engaging him in lively conversations. As long as you keep straight that Christianity is not Christ, and that public images of Christ are one step removed from his personal fidelity to you, you are freed from the denominational eccentricities that pervade the Body of Christ.

As long as you commune daily with Jesus, you can read Scripture from Genesis to Revelation without becoming preoccupied by tangents (like self-consciously trying to obey a bunch of rules), or thrown off track by paradoxes that are not easily reconciled (like God’s sovereignty and the problem of evil).

You diversify your exposure to the Christian heritage and enrich your perception of God’s Being by enjoying the sensual beauty of a Catholic Mass, the rousing singing of a Baptist service, the enthusiastic celebration of a Pentecostal revival, the reverence of a Presbyterian worship service, or the relational enrichment of a home Bible study.

So let's carry on today, taking the apostle Paul at his word: "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Eph 3:17-19)." 

For more on how to follow Jesus Christ, see:

Faith Beyond Church Walls: Finding Freedom In Christ