No Answer 

   “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” (Matt 7: 7) 

   Beautiful words from our Lord, promises of answered prayers.  But what do we do when our prayers go unanswered?  Is it possible for our prayers to go unanswered when Jesus promises they will?

   St. Paul gives a clue, “For we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs that cannot be put into words.” (Romans 8: 26).  We often pray for what we want, forgetting that we should be praying for God’s will to be done.  For all that we ask in prayer we must also add, “if it is according to your will.”

   The will of God is rarely clear to us.  So perhaps the Holy Spirit is perfecting our prayers even as we pray.  Still, what do we do when we see no evidence of our prayers being answered?  How do we reconcile that with the knowledge of God’s everlasting love and mercy?

   We need to rethink what we are asking for.  It seems to me that the perfect prayer is “You will be done in all things at all times.”  Our pastor teaches a simple prayer that says basically the same thing, “Do to me what you will, do in me what you will, do through me what you will.”

   We must quit trying to limit God with our own earthly ideas and desires and surrender all to His will.  We may not understand, and we will know trials and have crosses we must bear.  But the goal is God’s kingdom, and only by our total surrender to His will can we enter those gates.

   God wants to give us what we need rather than what we might think we want.  When we surrender ourselves to His will and quit trying to tie Him by our desires, we open the door for His love and mercy to freely flow into us, giving us all we will ever need to spend eternity with Him in His heavenly home.