Are your prayers always answered? Or do you wish God might be hearing you every time you pray?

Is prayer really a hit or miss way of communicating with God?

Contrary to what many Christians believe, there is not one prayer in the Bible that God ignored. Jesus said, whatever we ask of God in His name, we will receive. God loves to answer prayers. Sometimes God answers prayers and His answers are largely unrecognizable.

You may be thinking if God loves to answer prayers then why are so many prayers seemingly left unanswered? Why do most believers hope that God will hear them instead of having the absolute assurance that He will?

Both of these problems stem from lack of knowledge.

1.- Lack of knowledge about who God is;

If God is a person you fear because you think He’ll get upset with you every time you do something wrong, you will not have the confidence of asking God in faith to answer your prayers.

And faithless prayers don’t usually draw  responses from God, it is  by faith that we can please God and believe that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him diligently. It is by faith we can pray with the assurance that God will hear us and answer our prayers according to His will for our lives, in addition according to His perfect timing for our lives!

2.- Lack of knowledge about His specific will for each of our lives;

Prayers should always be done with the certainty of His will for our lives.

One of the most abused prayers is the “but may Your will be done” prayer. Some people pray that phrase ignorantly in any prayer they ever utter.

The only time that phrase was ever prayed in the Bible was when Jesus prayed it in Gethsemane. He knew the will of God, but He didn’t want to obey it.

It was a prayer of consecration: a prayer that showed His willingness to ignore His own flesh and do the will of God instead of His own.

Jesus prayed this prayer three times that night and so should we pray it often throughout our day when we struggle with doing the will of God in our lives, like forgiving someone or showing love to our enemies.

3.- Lack of knowledge about how different prayers are to be prayed;

Prayers are like ball games.

They are all played with balls, but they have different rules. Just as you cannot play soccer with baseball rules, you cannot pray a prayer of faith with the guidelines of a prayer of consecration.

The prayer of faith must be preceded by building your faith, confessing the word of God, etc. You have to be convinced that what you are asking for is really God’s will and firmly believe it.
Once you are sure it is God’s will for you to have what you ask, then you go before Him and ask, but only once  believing that He will hear and answer you at the right time.

After that you just thank Him every time the issue comes up and wait for Him to answer you in the way He feels is best. You have already made your petition and now you know with all your heart that He will answer!