Unanswered Prayer

Unanswered Prayer

“The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.  Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years!  Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops”.  James 5:16b-18 NLT

James teaches us that God will honor our prayers.

Do you have the courage and faith to pray like Elijah did?

Every Christian knows the joy of answered prayer.   Regardless of how long you have been saved, I know you have had at least one prayer answered.  If you have been a Christian any length of time, you have also experienced the frustration of unanswered prayer.

We have all read verses like, Jer. 33:3 (NIV) “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know”.   Or Eph. 3:20 (NIV) “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,” and we have claimed them for our needs.

But when the dust settled, your need remained and God had said, “no”. 

How can that be?    Did God go back on His promises?

Paul admits that he too experienced the frustration of unanswered prayer.    Three times Paul asked God to remove a thorn in his flesh and three times, God said, “no”.

Aren’t you glad that He sometimes says, “no”?    I mean, what kind of shape would our life be in today if God said, “yes” to everything we ever asked Him?

Why does God say, “no”?

Some people we expect God not to answer----people like rapists or murderers.  John 9:3 (NIV) says, “We know that God does not listen to sinners.  He listens to the godly man who does his will”.   Proverbs 29:9 calls the prayers of a lawless person, “an abomination”.

In another place in Proverbs, the Lord said, “But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me”.   (Prov. 1:24,25,28 NIV)