The Days of Elijah Part 7

6. Sometimes God doesn’t answer our prayer for our own good.

It has been said that God always answers our prayers, sometimes He says “yes”, sometimes “wait” and other times “no”. I do not believe that it is always that simple. Isaiah tells us that “Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” Isaiah 59:1 – 2 (NIV). The Psalmist writes, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” Psalm 66:18 (NIV). James tells us, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” James 4:3 (NIV)
John Piper says that many of our prayers go unanswered because we forget that we are in a battle and prayer is like using a walkie talkie to get instructions from our Commander in Chief. Instead we look at prayer as an intercom where we are requesting things from the kitchen for our comfort in the den. James tells us that many of our prayers are ineffective because we ask with the wrong motives. If our prayers go unanswered we should not just say that the answer was “no” but rather we should examine ourselves. First, our prayers may have gone unanswered because of sin which we must deal with. Second, our prayers may have gone unanswered because they were not in the will of God. We need to spend time in the Word to know what God’s will is and then pray accordingly. Third, our prayers may have gone unanswered because we have asked with the wrong motives. This is similar to the second reason and it usually arises because we have focused on our own comforts instead of the glory of God. Finally I should add that sometimes our prayers appear to be unanswered but the answer has been delayed as in the case when Daniel prayed and Satan blocked his prayer. Elijah’s prayer to die was unanswered because he had taken his eyes off his God and saw only his circumstances. God was gentle with His servant and showed him that he would not die but that there were greater things in store for him.