Why God is not answering my prayers?

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Are we Praying According to God’s Will?

On different occasions family members and friends asked me:
“Why God is not answering my/our prayers?”
It is really difficult to answer such question especially if it is coming from a believer and or a committed Christian who is in trouble.
However I hope and pray to the Holy Spirit in Jesus most Holy Name to give me strength and help to answer this question based on the scriptures.

Prayer is a Dialogue with God:
1. Prayer is a dialogue with our God! Imagine that you are visiting a king or a queen and you have few minutes to express yourself, what do you do in preparation? You probably go to the hairdresser/barber, have a shower, dress up with smart clothes, spray some perfume, and practice your speech… Praying to the Most High God requires some preparation too, but not according to our earthly traditions and understanding rather according to the teaching of our Most Holy Christ. Before approaching our God in prayer, we need to be pure and clean in our hearts, having full assurance of faith that our payers will be answered because Jesus had loved us and took on our sins so we may have abundant life as shown in [Heb 10:22] “let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water”.

God is not a God of Favouritism and Partiality:
2. God Most High is not a God of favouritism and partiality as shown in [Acts 10:34], and [Romans 2:11]. “But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” [Acts 10:35]. However we cannot work righteousness without our Faith in Him as shown in [Heb 11:6].
3. God is not an agency and does not work through an agency [Gal 1:1] which executes our dreams and requests, because God has priority for His plans, and we must “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” as shown in [Mat 6:33].

God will not answer our prayers if they are not inline with His Plans:
1. There are things prepared by God for us, and we cannot just ask that God changes His plans just for us to be happy according to our earthly feelings as shown in [Matt 20:23]
2. God knows our hearts and He asks us not to be selfish [Philippians 2:3], so if we pray with selfishness and/or pride, God will surely not answer our prayers.
3. God always checks our motives when we pray as shown in [James 4:3], if our motives are not pure and clean, God will not answer our prayers.
4. There is only one way to pray, is by asking in the Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ [John 14:14], because He is continually interceding with the Father for us [Heb 7:25]. So praying should always be through the Son of God using Jesus Name [John 16:23]
5. What ever you do, do it heartily, as for the Lord not for men [Col 3:23]. We cannot be idle and ask God for help! For example I cannot ask God to do work on my behalf in a project that I am supposed to deliver. However I can ask God for help and guidance in order for me to deliver the project heartily, correctly and on time.
6. We need to ask and pray according to God’s will and our prayers will be answered [1 John 5:14,15]. And we need to Pray without ceasing [1 Thessalonians 5:17], prayer is a dialogue with God and this is exactly what Jesus wants us to do.
7. For God to hear our prayers we need to keep His Laws [Psalm 119:55], before Christ, God’s followers were asked to keep the 10 commandments and the 613 Rules of the Law. It was practically impossible to keep up with all these, that’s why the Law was like a mirror for us, it was a benchmark which defines how pure people were, however when Jesus came He did not abolish the Law nor the “mirror” but he started a new Law which complements the old one by following only 2 Commandments and one Rule. The Golden Rule was given in [Matt 7:12] in order to compensate for the Old Law: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets”, the 2 Commandments were given in [Mark 12:30-31] “AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ “The second is this, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Therefore for God to answer our prayers we need to exclusively love our God, and to love our neighbour and this would mean to love everyone that God sends to cross our life’s path, irrespective of who he/she is.
8. Sometimes even if we follow God’s Commandments and Rules, God delays answering our prayer for our best according to His Plans. Take for example Zachariah and Elisabeth, they were both “righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly” [Luke 1:6] and despite their prayers they were “childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old” [Luke 1:7]. Imagine that Luke said they were Righteous and Blameless in following God’s Law; still God was not answering their prayers to have a child! Why? Because God had a plan for them to show His glory in the miraculous birth of John the Baptist and to achieve His Salvation plan through Jesus Christ.

God is a Loving Father who gives us always what we need but not necessarily what we want:
9. God may not always give us what we want, however He always gives us what we need [Luke 11:3] He taught us to pray “Give us each day our daily bread” so we may start by asking for what we need not for what we want. Then we can ask for His help to bless us in order to achieve what we want if it is in line with His Will. But in whatever we ask and do we need to be sure that we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness [Mat 6:33].
10. Jesus was clear when He asked us not to fear in [Matt 6:26-27] “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life”. This is a clear invitation for us not to fear and not to worry because the Almighty God is always looking after us [Psalm 23:1] and He always offers us “green pastures”. Also in parallel: “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. “But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? You men of little faith” [Luke 12:27-28]
11. God a loving Father He is always willing to answer our needs [Matthew 7:7-11]

God may not answer our prayers in order to communicate a more powerful message:
12. God may not answer our prayers in order to communicate a more powerful message, when Paul prayed three times that God would deliver him from “a thorn in the flesh” [2 Cor. 12:7-8], God did not answer his prayer rather He gave him a good lesson: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” [2 Cor. 12:9]. This means that Jesus Grace is sufficient for us at times of trouble and despite of our weakness, by just appreciating Jesus Grace it would be more than sufficient for us to overcome the trouble. Therefore no need for us to ask for more!
13. Our requests should be made with Thanksgiving, prayer and supplication [Philippians 4:6,7], supplication is important because it keeps us closer to God, but we need Faith to get closer and closer [Heb 11:6]

God will not answer if we pray as the heathen and hypocrites do:
14. God will not answer if we pray with repetitions as the heathen do [Matt 6:7-8] “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
15. God will not answer our prayers if we pray “like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” [Matt 6:5-6]
16. God will not answer our prayers if we just listen to His teaching and deceive ourselves, we should do what the word of God says not just listen [Jam 1:22]

We need to have perfected faith in Jesus Christ Holy Name:
17. If we abide in Jesus, and His words are written in our hearts then yes God will answer whatever we ask Him in Jesus name according to His will [John 15:7]
18. Our Faith is the most important factor in achieving basically anything, but we also have to understand the above Key Factors in order to perfect our Faith in the Son of God [Matt 21:21].
19. [Mark 10:52] And Jesus said to him, Go your way; your faith has made you whole. …
20. [Luke 7:50] And he said to the woman, Your faith has saved you; go in peace.
21. [Luke 8:48] And he said to her, Daughter, be of good comfort: your faith has …
22. [Luke 17:19] And he said to him, Arise, go your way: your faith has made you whole.
23. [Luke 18:42] And Jesus said to him, Receive your sight: your faith has saved you.
24. [Acts 14:9] The same heard Paul speak: who steadfastly beholding him, and perceiving …
25. All the above verses prove that Faith in Jesus Christ is the source of healing, and when God does not answer our prayers, this may not indicate that we don’t have Faith, it just indicates that we need to follow how Jesus wants us to pray, and how Jesus wants our Faith to be perfected according to His Will and Words, in order for our dialogue with Him becomes fruitful.

God Sometimes offers an opportunity for us to achieve our prayers instead of answering our prayers directly:
26. God sometimes may not answer our prayers directly, however He offers an opportunity for us to achieve what we are praying for (or even better) [Luke 7:7-11]. We just have to ask, and Jesus will provide good things to us.
27. God offers an escape and solution for every temptation as shown in [1 Cor 10:13] “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”

Conclusion:

A prayer is a dialogue with God; we need to prepare ourselves spiritually by having a clean conscience, mind, and even body before we start our prayer:
We need to:
1. Accept Jesus our King as our personal saviour.
2. Love our God exclusively, and our Neighbour, and follow the Golden rule.
3. Declare Jesus as the Master of our life, He is our Head and we are His Body.
4. Confess our sins and repent in order to draw closer to God.
5. Be pure in heart and motives, without selfishness and pride.
6. Approach God with obedience according to His Will in Jesus Name.
7. Abide in Jesus so that His Words abide in our hearts.
8. Have a Perfected Faith in Jesus Holy Name.
9. Seek the Kingdom and Righteousness of God and all these things will be added to us…
10. Ask for our needs, and then pray for help in achieving our wants provided they go inline with God’s Will.
11. Accept God’s grace as being sufficient and rejoice with the new “good things“ i.e. opportunities as alternatives to not answering directly our prayers.
12. Avoid repetitions like heathens and being hypocrites in our prayers, and Pray without ceasing.