Does God Always Answer Our Prayers?
This is a question that mostly filled our minds when it comes to prayers. I remember discussing this same question with the young people in our Church. We were taught that God answers prayer with either a “Yes”, a “No” or a “Wait”. But when I read this devotional by A. W. Tozer (thanks to James for the influence), my whole perspective about God’s answer to my prayers changed. Read it below and tell me what you think about it.
_____________________
Does God always Answer Prayer?
by A.W. Tozer
CONTRARY TO POPULAR OPINION, the cultivation of a psychology of uncritical belief is not an unqualified good, and if carried too far it may be a positive evil. The whole world has been booby-trapped by the devil, and the deadliest trap of all is the religious one. Error never looks so innocent as when it is found in the sanctuary.
One field where harmless-looking but deadly traps appear in great profusion is the field of prayer. There are more sweet notions about prayer than could be contained in a large book, all of them wrong and all highly injurious to the souls of men.
I think of one such false notion that is found often in pleasant places consorting smilingly with other notions of unquestionable orthodoxy. It is that God always answers prayer.
This error appears among the saints as a kind of all-purpose philosophic therapy to prevent any disappointed Christian from suffering too great a shock when it becomes evident to him that his prayer expectations are not being fulfilled. It is explained that God always answers prayer, either by saying Yes or by saying No, or by substituting something else for the desired favor.
Now, it would be hard to invent a neater trick than this to save face for the petitioner whose requests have been rejected for non-obedience. Thus when a prayer is not answered he has but to smile brightly and explain, “God said No.” It is all so very comfortable. His wobbly faith is saved from confusion and his conscience is permitted to lie undisturbed. But I wonder if it is honest.
To receive an answer to prayer as the Bible uses the term and as Christians have understood it historically, two elements must be. present: (1) A clear-cut request made to God for a specific favor. (2) A clear-cut granting of that favor by God in answer to the request. There must be no semantic twisting, no changing of labels, no altering of the map during the journey to help the embarrassed tourist to find himself.
When we go to God with a request that He modify the existing situation for us, that is, that He answer prayer, there are two conditions that we must meet: (1) We must pray in the will of God and (2) we must be on what old-fashioned Christians often call “praying ground”; that is, we must be living lives pleasing to God.
It is futile to beg God to act contrary to His revealed purposes. To pray with confidence the petitioner must be certain that his request falls within the broad will of God for His people.
The second condition is also vitally important. God has not placed Himself under obligation to honor the requests of worldly, carnal or disobedient Christians. He hears and answers the prayers only of those who walk in His way. “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight . . . . If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (I John 3:21, 22; John 15:7).
God wants us to pray and He wants to answer our prayers, but He makes our use of prayer as a privilege to commingle with His use of prayer as a discipline. To receive answers to prayer we must meet God’s terms. If we neglect His commandments our petitions will not be honored. He will alter situations only at the request of obedient and humble souls.
The God-always-answers-prayer sophistry leaves the praying man without discipline. By the exercise of this bit of smooth casuistry he ignores the necessity to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, and actually takes God’s flat refusal to answer his prayer as the very answer itself. Of course such a man will not grow in holiness; he will never learn how to wrestle and wait; he will never know correction; he will not hear the voice of God calling him forward; he will never arrive at the place where he is morally and spiritually fit to have his prayers answered. His wrong philosophy has ruined him.
That is why I turn aside to expose the bit of bad theology upon which his bad philosophy is founded. The man who accepts it never knows where he stands; he never knows whether or not he has true faith, for if his request is not granted he avoids the implication by the simple dodge of declaring that God switched the whole thing around and gave him something else. He will not allow himself to shoot at a target, so he cannot tell how good or how bad a marksman he is.
Of certain persons James says plainly: “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” From that brief sentence we may learn that God refuses some requests because they who make them are not morally worthy to receive the answer. But this means nothing to the one who has been seduced into the belief that God always answers prayer. When such a man asks and receives not he passes his hand over the hat and comes up with the answer in some other form. One thing he clings to with great tenacity: God never turns anyone away, but invariably grants every request.
The truth is that God always answers the prayer that accords with His will as revealed in the Scriptures, provided the one who prays is obedient and trustful. Further than this we dare not go.
_____________________
This was taken from his book “Man: The Dwelling Place of God“. For more devotionals from this book click here.
While this devotional is lovely, it is full of unsupported assumptions and pontifications. His first assumtion (we must pray in the will of God) is a truism. The second, (we must be living a righteous life) is neither possible nor logical. Clearly, if a prayer request does conform to the will of God, it might be granted, regardles of how the petioner is living his life.
Bill Kepler
“He hears and answers the prayers only of those who walk in His way”this statement is a bit wrong, GOd hears eqch one of us, He lovs us all and he hears us when we talk to HIM,GOd is not for good people only , HE is for bad people also , He loves us all so HE hears each one of us when we cry to Him.
William/Gertrude: Thank you for your replies. These made me reconsider the truth behind this devotional. Fortunately, we discussed this in church last week and I was reminded of this devotional and think about your replies as well. The question that came to my mind is, if what you are saying is correct, that God grants the requests that conform to His will even if the petitioner is not living according to God’s teaching, isn’t it direct contradiction to what God said in verses 1 to 3 of Isaiah 59? I am not really sure what the answer is so I really hope you will stumble to this post again and reply to this thread.
God bless!
This is a really interesting question, I’d love to read more people’s responses to this. The passages in Isaiah 59 you refer to – some might argue that this was “pre-Jesus”, and that as Jesus washes away all of our sins on repentance, God sees any true believer as holy enough to answer his prayers.
However, clearly this is not the full story; there are various references in the NT to the link between spiritual uprightness and God’s response to your prayers. But then, aren’t we all sinners? Even those who appear upright are sinners – you have to presume that what the writers of the NT are NOT doing is setting up yet another generation of pharisees… “those guys were holy on the outside, but full of sin on the inside. We’re the true holy ones…”
There is obviously a worry that by talking about this issue, people would be put off communciating with God because they don’t feel worthy. Jesus bridged the distance between us and God – no one should feel like they cannot pray because they’re not holy enough. But still, we all know there are differences between the way some Christians live their lives and others, and it’s not hard to see that those who devote their lives more fully to God will see greater answer to prayer.
I wonder if it is a matter of *what* you pray. If you feel like you are in sin and far from God, perhaps it is not the time for you to be asking for this, that and the other. Perhaps it is a time for you to be crying out to God, grasping hold of his sacrifice with both hands and being thankful. When you are living in the strength of God and secure in his promises, perhaps then is the time to widen your prayer to request his direct intervention.
Regardless of some of the issues raised here, I think some parts of this devotional are very timely and very wise: God listens to every prayer, but no-where in the Bible does it suggest he answers every one. As Christians, we love to give ourselves get-out clauses sometimes; nothing happens and we comfort ourselves that God is saying “wait and see”, or “no”. We don’t like to think that God is simply not answering our prayers, but it is entirely possible, and we should not set ourselves up for disappointment with false pretences!
I definitely think that God does answers prayers. He is our Father. The best Father that has ever existed and we couldn’t imagine the spectacular unconditional love He has for every single soul! Do you realize the magnitude of His love and promises? In each story Jesus approaches the unloved, sick, sinful and answers their prayers and gives them miracles. We are so blind sometimes. We have miracles happen all the time and to think that we are missing it so much throughout the day is sad. We take things for granted too much. Just think!!! He created science, pictures, processes that are foreign and familiar to us, the gifts we’re natural at, the set up of Earth. We could be too close to the sun or too far, but it’s established perfectly so we could survive, made just for US! HE LOVES YOU! Even in the midst of tragedy, depression, misunderstanding, loss of faith, hate, bitterness, revenge… all these man-made sinful acts, free-will choices. He still wants us to be close to Him if we’d only allow ourselves to TRUST and take a small step of faith each day in His path, not ours. To be wiser, make as many correct choices we can with intentions of loving and not hurting others in the process. We will always fail, but with His help and surrender, you will see great things happen, a sense of relief that you’re not on your own and you are always loved!