Why Does God Take So Long in Answering My Prayers?

I have prayed many prayers in my lifetime. I can tell you that most of the time my prayers weren’t answered immediately. I am NOT a patient person so this has always been difficult for me. I often wondered why God doesn’t answer prayers right away.

It was a year ago that I was abruptly cut from my job.  The next day I reached out to a contact with another company and I thought I was on my way to getting another job rather quickly.  It didn’t end up like that at all.  That call was followed by several delays and frustration.  I assumed that I KNEW this was going to work out but in the end, the timing led me to the company I am with today and it was a better opportunity than I had ever imagined.

I have learned that the reason God doesn’t always answer is because of timing. First of all, the reason that God doesn’t answer our prayers right away is - well - He’s God and we are not. He doesn’t take pleasure in making us wait but He sees the entire picture. We only see the results that we want but not the implications it will have on others. There is a butterfly effect on how our prayers are answered. The answers often have a ripple effect.

This is painfully true when you are prayers involve people. God isn’t going to force people to do anything. Our free will is the wildcard in the timing of our prayers being answered. There are so many connections involved which affect the outcome.

God's timing is the perfect moment when He has ordained for something to happen. It is not about our own timeline or desires. Instead, God's timing is rooted in His will and perfect plan. When we trust in God's timing, we can be sure He is working while we wait.

I know.  This makes my head hurt too but we tend to only look at the answers to our prayers selfishly and not from God’s perspective and how all things have to work together for His good - not ours. (Romans 8:28). Isaiah 55:8-9 also reminds us “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

God hears our prayers and He wants to answer them but there is a divine timetable which He doesn’t share with us. Our job is to pray, have faith and leave the results to Him.

If you’re like me, we can get impatient and sometimes we mess everything up by trying to make things happen ourselves instead of waiting on God. It must frustrate Him when we do this. We probably never realize how we may have delayed the answer to our prayers because we had to meddle.

God’s timing is crucial. We need to understand it and let Him make it happen according to His plan.

“Faith in God includes faith in God’s timing.”
Neal A. Maxwell

Pulling the Weeds of Life

I enjoy working outside when the weather is nice, but my least favorite outdoor chore is when I have to pull weeds. I have tried using both commercial and homemade weed killers, but nothing really does the job like getting down on the ground in the dirt and pulling the weeds by hand.

There is nothing fancy about it. You have to get in the dirt and extract the weeds from the roots. If you don't get down deep enough, they will just grow back.  When I was pulling the weeds in my yard last week, I thought about how weeding applies to our spiritual lives. We must take time to examine ourselves (2 Corinthians 13:5) and weed out things in our lives which hinder us. The Bible also tells us to lay aside every weight and sin (Hebrews 12:1). That means things are going to come up that we will need to weed out.

There are many things that can become weeds in our lives. The first thing that came to my mind was the weed of unforgiveness. This one gives us a lot of problems. I have also had problems with this one myself at times.  I have said many times that we need to be good at forgiving quickly. Unforgiveness can take root quickly in our lives if we don’t deal with it immediately. When there is an issue that we haven’t either asked forgiveness or received forgiveness from someone, it can totally choke out our relationship with God. That’s why we need to constantly weed this one out.

There are other things that can become weeds in our lives. Greed can be another where we value money over anything else. The Bible tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil. (1 Timothy 6:10) Isn’t that something we see a lot in America today? That’s a whole blog in itself.

Lust and sexual sin can be another weed. I know this isn’t very comfortable to talk about but when you don’t deal with these types of weeds, the roots get deeper and can get out of control. Sexual sin is something that people like to keep as a secret but it ain’t a secret if God sees it. The more you feed lust the more it takes of you. It’s sad how people think they control it but the deception is that it controls them the longer they go without weeding it out.

Weeding isn’t fun but it is necessary in the life of a believer, and it is a constant task we must be diligent in doing.  We can't ever think we've got it made.  None of us are perfect so we must keep weeding and make sure we keep out the things that will hinder our relationship with God.

So how do we "weed" our lives?

1. Stay in communication with God.  Talk about it and let Him talk to you.  
2. Don't ignore the weight and sin that need to be weeded out.  
3. Constantly examine your life so you are vigilant about any weeds.
4. Ask advice of someone you trust.  

Weeding takes effort.  There is no easy way about it.  Just as it is with chores in the yard around your home, you want to maintain it.  We have to do the same thing about our spiritual lives.  

Your mind is a garden

Your thoughts are the seeds

You can grow flowers

Or you can grow weeds.

Does It Matter How Many People Pray?

Here in my local city a 10-year-old boy was swept into a storm drain and severely injured. He is now in intensive care with no brain activity. It is a tragic story and a nightmare no parent should ever have to go through. Since the boy was injured, there have been many requests for prayers.

That made me wonder...does it matter how many people are praying? Does the number of people praying influence God in any way?

I often see on social media when people will request for "prayer warriors" to pray for a need.  So, does this make any difference to God?

Jesus never mentioned any numerical requirement for giving prayers a better chance of being answered.  In one passage Jesus did say:  "For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them." (Matthew 18:20)   If you read that again you will also see that this doesn't guarantee an answer - only that Jesus will be there.  

There is also a passage in 2 Corinthians 1:11 which says:  "Joining me in praying so that, when God answers, God will be glorified in answering many prayers."  This would indicate that praying together helps but not a guarantee that God will answer in your favor based on that.

God doesn't need us to "tip the scales" in prayers in order to force him to answer us.  There are no numbers which will pressure God to answer.  While prayers of others are good and needed, it shouldn't be where my need got 199 people praying and someone else only had 25 people praying so I get mine answered.  That's not how it works.

If God wants to answer, it really only takes one prayer of faith.  James 5:16 tells us that "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much."  Answered prayer is a result of our faith connecting with God's will, not the number of people praying.

We shouldn't think that the chances of God's response is based on the number of people praying about a matter.  That isn't found in the Bible and can lead us to think the wrong way about how God works.  

So, should we ask others to pray with us?  Absolutely.  There are times when we are weak or in situations where we don't have the strength to pray effectively on our own.  For instance, when we are sick, the Bible gives a specific template about what a believer should do.  James wrote "is anyone among you sick?  Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven."  (James 5:14-15)

There is power in prayer, not in numbers.