Unanswered Prayers?

WATCHWORD:

¹⁶ Always be joyful. ¹⁷ Never stop praying. ¹⁸ Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. ¹⁹ Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. ²⁰ Do not scoff at prophecies, ²¹ but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. ²² Stay away from every kind of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22

Meditation:

Unanswered Prayers?

Unanswered prayers? Nonsense! Never happen. You must not be paying attention!

One of my favorite Country and Western ballads is a song by Garth Brooks, entitled “Unanswered Prayers.” In that story-song we learn that earlier the young man did not get his prayer answered when he asked, but later learns the prayer was answered in far better way than he hoped. For me, that is a picture of us, set to music. We pray and want an answer on our schedule and, like a spoiled child, if you don’t get it, now, we decide that God’s answer is “No” or He wasn’t paying attention to us. Or it was an unanswered prayer.

Oswald Chambers makes this observation about Paul’s admonition to “pray without ceasing”.  He says, ”our thinking about prayer,  whether right or wrong, is based on our own mental conception of it. The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath of our lungs and the blood from our hearts.  Our blood flows and our breathing continues “without ceasing”; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops.” Okay, that is the prayer part, but where is the answer? Where are our petitions, our ‘asks’?

What have we’ve been told? “If you ask for anything, in My Name, Our Father in Heaven will grant it…” Yes, that’s right and that’s true. God is in control, He knows our hearts, and He knows what is needed to draw you ever closer to Him.  Is it the healing of your loved one? Is that the prayer of your heart? Is a parking place near your destination, the prayer of your heart? Really? Of your heart? A parking spot? Come on!

You know we have that third person of the God-head tucked inside our hearts, the Holy Spirit. When we pray, the Holy Spirit hears our prayers. Do we have a certainty that our prayers reach that destination by calling on the name of Jesus?  Can we accept the fact that God answers all prayers in the best way, every time, not just some time. Do we trust that? Does our lack of patience interfere with our faith and belief?

I wonder if we want to water down what Jesus tells us to make it mean something in our common-sense minds?  Frankly that doesn’t make any sense at all, if it was only common-sense it would not have been  worth it in the face of eternity.

Here is the ‘bottom line’, “The things that Jesus taught about prayer are supernatural truths He reveals to us. As His children we are privileged, blessed indeed.  Pray with every breath. Amen.

From a Watchword Member:

Referencing  June 2 and 3, Watchwords:
“If I read you right, this is slightly counter to our conversation that there might be people who are Christians by deed and by their interactions in the world, but do not necessarily openly accept Jesus as the one true savior. Or even believe in Jesus at all. Or even in God.