THE MYSTERY OF UNANSWERED PRAYER (7 OF 8)
The Mystery of Unanswered Prayer (7 of 8)
Series: Talking to God
Jonathan McLeod
Psalm 13
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? (Ps. 13:1).
HOW LONG UNTIL YOU HEAR ME?
Sometimes when I'm reading a book or watching TV, one of my children will ask me something, and I don't even realize they're talking to me. Finally my wife will say, ''[Child's name], he doesn't hear a word you're saying.''
Sometimes it seems like God is like a father who doesn't really hear his children. We pray and pray and pray, and finally in frustration we ask, ''God, how long until you're going to do something about my prayer?''
It's normal to be frustrated with prayer. In the Bible, you'll find people asking God the same question: ''How long until you're going to do something about my prayer?'' David asked this question in Psalm 13.
[Read Psalm 13.]
TRYING TO SOLVE THE MYSTERY
In the Bible, we find many amazing promises about prayer. For example, ''And this is the confi-dence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him'' (1 John 5:14-15). When we read this and other biblical promises about prayer, we can become frustrated because our experience with prayer is often very different. We ask, and we don't receive.
Let me be clear: I don't have all of the answers about unanswered prayer. More often, I feel like David in Psalm 13 than the apostle John in 1 John 5:14-15. But the Bible does give us several truths about prayer that can help us when we're struggling with unanswered prayer. We must remember these truths when we pray.
1. When we pray, we must remember that we are talking to a loving Father.
The Lord's Prayer begins by addressing God as ''Our Father in heaven'' (Matt. 6:9). Throughout 1 John, John emphasizes that believers are God's children. In 3: ...
Series: Talking to God
Jonathan McLeod
Psalm 13
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? (Ps. 13:1).
HOW LONG UNTIL YOU HEAR ME?
Sometimes when I'm reading a book or watching TV, one of my children will ask me something, and I don't even realize they're talking to me. Finally my wife will say, ''[Child's name], he doesn't hear a word you're saying.''
Sometimes it seems like God is like a father who doesn't really hear his children. We pray and pray and pray, and finally in frustration we ask, ''God, how long until you're going to do something about my prayer?''
It's normal to be frustrated with prayer. In the Bible, you'll find people asking God the same question: ''How long until you're going to do something about my prayer?'' David asked this question in Psalm 13.
[Read Psalm 13.]
TRYING TO SOLVE THE MYSTERY
In the Bible, we find many amazing promises about prayer. For example, ''And this is the confi-dence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him'' (1 John 5:14-15). When we read this and other biblical promises about prayer, we can become frustrated because our experience with prayer is often very different. We ask, and we don't receive.
Let me be clear: I don't have all of the answers about unanswered prayer. More often, I feel like David in Psalm 13 than the apostle John in 1 John 5:14-15. But the Bible does give us several truths about prayer that can help us when we're struggling with unanswered prayer. We must remember these truths when we pray.
1. When we pray, we must remember that we are talking to a loving Father.
The Lord's Prayer begins by addressing God as ''Our Father in heaven'' (Matt. 6:9). Throughout 1 John, John emphasizes that believers are God's children. In 3: ...
There are 4982 characters in the full content. This excerpt only shows a 2000 character sample of the full content.
Price: $5.99 or 1 credit
