One of the most asked questions by people on an ongoing basis is, ‘why hasn’t God answered my prayers or answered them my way’ and then this is usually followed up with, ‘why does God allow problem after problem to keep happening to me’? I am sure that we can all think of a bunch of different ways to answer this, however, if we examine the following it will go a long way to helping the greatest number of people to understand their ‘troubled, daily walk with God’.

First, it is easy to ask for this or for that and then in a brief period of time say, ‘see no answer yet’. We are ‘now’ type of creatures and fortunately, God understands this. However, we need understand that God is in the ‘time-frame’ of eternity and we are in the frame of fleeting moments. We live in time and God does not. It is difficult for us to understand this point completely however we can better understand it when we look at it this way. After we have lived many years of time, we will ‘die’ to this world of minutes and seconds and then enter eternity or a time of no time with God.

If we can understand just a bit about time and eternity we need then understand that there is a real and lasting benefit to most ‘unanswered prayers’. For an example, the immature or temporary desires of wanting this person or that person to want us, doesn’t stand the ‘test of time’ or the light of many years in retrospect. We will in time look to and find our happiest moments of life spent with our spouse, children and grandchildren who may not have been in our lives if things of the pass had turned out the way we had wanted, and prayed for at that moment. No doubt many, if not most of us have had those close but not close enough relationships with people we thought we wanted as our spouse for a lifetime. Now in the arms of our spouse and family we can see that the right way was the way God worked things and the way they turned out, no matter how much we whined and cried back when close became not close enough.

Some may dismiss all this as fate or some other cosmic force; however I see it as God’s way and His way doesn’t depend or rely on us and/or our wishes. With this in mind we need to understand that the unanswered prayers are truly God’s way of answering of our prayers, just not in the exact way we had wished. God may be saying, yes to our prayer for life long happiness and romance, but no not now, wait because there is another someone else who is just right and will help make ‘things’ into the way you will truly desire ‘things’ to be one day. This understanding of ‘unanswered prayers’ answers a good portion of the ‘why not’ questions and not just to romantic relationships.

The remainder of the other questions I feel is in the fact that most of us go through life as if we were the spoiled only child in the room. Most of us don’t listen for that ‘still small voice’, or to ‘the call to prayer’. Because we don’t ‘listen silently’ to God’s voice and will, either while at prayer or in prayerful meditation, we go through life haphazardly attempting to please ourselves, our friends, our families and last but not least, God himself if we have the time. We all have had experiences where one person was repeatedly trying to give us whatever it was that we were fumbling for, but because we were not listening or not giving any ‘real’ acknowledgment to the one who was so helpfully offering that which we wanted, we missed their assistance and the possibly easy solution. This ‘comedic’ occurrence can continue to ad nauseam or until we either stopped and listened or until the helpful person grabs us and ‘forces’ us to listen to them. I view God as the ‘helpful person’ in our example. He has the answer(s), the right way(s) and the very best way(s) for us to handle that which we are experiencing at the moment. He is saying wait, wait, wait, be quiet, do it this way or that way, trust me I know what is best for you, I made you and I love you! How then do you suppose God finally does get our attention? Yes, by having us in turn need Him more than anyone or anything else, at that very moment by heaping on more of the ‘pain-in-the-neck’ troubles meant to be a ‘call’ to come back to Him. For an example, let’s say we are attempting to answer for ourselves, a money issue. We run here, we run there, we do this and do that; we go this way, then we are ‘forced’ to listen to God, because a even worst and additional bad situation and/or problem surfaces that we can’t resolve. Now when we are out of ideas and solutions we succumb and submit to God for the answer and/or the way out of the situation.

We also need understand that God uses a lot of those ‘pain-in-the-neck’ situations that occur to us as nothing more then His ‘call to return to Him and His ways’. How do we sort out which is which? I don’t think we one, have the time or enough information to decipher occurrences at the moment they are bugging us. However, in time, and in retrospect we can better see ‘the hand of God’ moving in our lives. Or secondly, it is usually the serious situations/problems that become solved easily and/or quickly, as if by magic, once we have returned to God and His way. God has never ever hid the fact that He is a very jealous God! He wants us to turn ALL things over to Him and His ways, good times and bad. The good news in all this jealousy is that He truly, completely loves us and always does what is best for us when we turn all ‘things’ over to Him.

For those of you who aren’t convinced about the method and/or the jealousy, I offer the following bold-face example. Back when we were teens we had terribly big and monstrous problems. Once we reached adult-hood we looked back at ‘teen-problems’ and laugh! You will hear yourself saying, ‘if only my life was so easy as it was back then’ or something to the effect. So this is the same when we will look back in retrospect and see the ‘calls of God’ boldly operating in our life for our best interests. When we have a greater need for this or that, and we can’t seem to solve it ourselves, we then go to God. Unfortunately, let’s face it, when ‘things’ are going just fine, we don’t think of Him, we don’t talk with Him (pray) we don’t even allow ourselves any thoughts of Him and His ways. Why? Because we are having too much of a good time and frankly, He would be a bore and/or a ‘downer’, or so we think. However, have our child get hurt or seriously but temporarily, ill, or we lose our job we run right to God and say ‘what…what was it that You were saying Lord’? If we acted this way to one another the results would be remarkably different. We would say, ‘oh so now you need my help big boy’, or something to that effect. Thankfully God, our heavenly Father, never acts as we would; He just rejoices that we have returned to Him to have Him fix ‘things’ for us. Just before you begin to get angry at God over the way He handles ‘things’, we need to truly examine these types of situations, and understand that it is us and our way of doing things that causes God to have to use ‘other’ means to get us to return to Him and to do ‘things’ His way. If we did this in the very first place we wouldn’t need any of the problems/situations that call us back to Him because we would already be there! This one simple sentence is the key. Understanding this one simple sentence will truly eliminate a large portion of troubles and problems by simply turning back FIRST to God and to His ways! Turn back and do it now! Turn back to God and avoid any need for God to send you any more ‘calls to return to Him’!