You know He hears when He answers prayers.
You wonder when He doesn’t answer.
That might remind you to check your heart,
to make sure you’re asking according to His will.
And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that,
if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us: 1 John 5:14
Or, what about when He doesn’t answer things the way we like,
or fast enough?
Seeking Jesus, reading His word to see,
or the worst is giving up on Him and making the choice in the flesh
that seems to be the best option at the moment.
Like what Sarah did when she didn’t see God’s promise quick enough…
Here Abraham, my beloved husband, take Hagar and have a child with her.
Sometimes, we just have to be patient
or our flesh will take over and try to answer the prayer.
Paul directly told husbands if you don’t treat your wives well,
your prayers may be hindered. That is similar to when Jesus said,
leave your gift at the altar and first makes things right with your brother
and then come before God.
And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you:
yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear:
your hands are full of blood.
Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings
from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed,
judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord:
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Isaiah 1:15-18
There are times when God does not answer prayers
or when they may be a blockage.
There are many reasons prayers can be unanswered or delayed.
Praying against God’s will, as in wanting to spend it on foolish lusts;
unforgiveness, anger, hatred, malice, greed, or any other sinful rock inside that God may reveal to you. Always listen for God’s direction in prayer.
That direction takes time and patience. He may remind you of a scripture
or scriptures to pray or He might just give you a glimpse of His will
and where He is wanting what you are praying for to end up.
The Lord’s Prayer is always a sure way to pray,
any prayer where we are asking for God’s will and not our own:
Lord open the doors you want open
and close them where you don’t want me to go.
Maybe we don’t even know what we are praying for will look like.
That’s okay. God does. Trust Him.
Scriptural References:
And Sarai said unto Abram,
Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing:
I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.
And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian,
after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan,
and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.
And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived:
and when she saw that she had conceived,
her mistress was despised in her eyes.
Genesis 16:2-4
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this,
To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction,
and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
James 1:27
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge,
giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel,
and as being heirs together of the grace of life;
that your prayers be not hindered.
1 Peter 3:7
Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way;
first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Matthew 5:24