"The entrance of thy words giveth light (Psalm 119:130)."
Don't Miss the Answer to Your Prayers
"So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you . . . (Luke 11:9 NKJV)"
Many Christians do believe in prayer—sort of. They believe that there is a God. That God can hear their prayers. And that God—at times—actually does answer prayers. But their perspective is, nonetheless, fairly pessimistic: They doubt that their important prayers will actually be answered.
It is true that God's response to our prayers is sometimes "no" and sometimes "wait." But this does not account for the amount of pessimism that is out there. The biggest problem is that people miss the answers to their prayers.
Sometime back, I was praying for a way to get my counseling hours for a secular mental health license. I was then offered a position as a drug counselor. I declined the position since it was a drug counselor position, not the Marriage and Family Therapist Intern position I was looking for. I later found out that I could acquire my hours in this job. I went back and got the job. Fortunately, the position was still available. Nevertheless, I missed several months of acquiring countable hours because I missed God's answer to my prayers!
This is not the only time this has happened. Not with me. And not with you.
So make sure you are alert for answers to your prayers. They often come in ways you might not expect. And remember, God does promise to answer all prayers in accordance with His will.
"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 NIV)."
