Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?

#5: God wants to draw you into a deeper relationship with Himself

God the Father’s deepest desire for our lives is that we would experience a fulfilling relationship with Him. Jesus came to allow us the opportunity to live this life in all its fullness & the Spirit helps us to understand this more completely as He transforms our hearts & minds.

We’re all attracted to “fast food” prayer. The type of asking that demands an immediate answer that may satisfy in that instant, but leaves a deeper thirst unquenched. But sometimes by holding back fast track blessings, God entices us to remain longer in His presence. Sometimes He considers our questioning & our wondering as more important than the relatively simple act of supplying us with an answer.

I’m not denying that this can be frustrating. But a delayed answer causes us to pray harder, search our souls more diligently and listen attentively to even the slightest whiff of a response from heaven. This is most evident in the lives of those Christians with the most intimate & energetic relationships with the Lord, who have more often than not wrestled & suffered through the silence of unanswered prayer.

I am not suggesting that God is sadistic, in fact the opposite. Sometimes He will deny us something so that He will draw us to the great Someone. And as we submit to this grand design (that is to love Him for who He is, not for the stuff He gives us), we find that either our requests change with an enhanced knowledge of His desires or that they are simply answered.

“The outer need kindles the inner and we find that the complete answer to prayer is the Answerer.” P.T. Forsythe

(Thoughts developed from Pete Greig’s “God on mute”)