Sermonette: Unanswered Prayer
#1698s
James Beaubelle
Given 18-Mar-23; 16 minutes
description: Without exploring the context in which God seems to delay answering our prayers or answering them opposite to our expectations, we might find the charge to be persistent in prayer (Luke 11:9-10) and the parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8) to be in contradiction with Paul's apparent capitulation about the thorn in his flesh. Paul accepted God's refusal to remove his affliction because he believed the suffering would produce the result our Lord was looking for in him. Though Paul did not get the answer he wanted, he did get the answer he needed. Even though we often must wait for a response, God listens closely to our prayers from the heart and is looking out for our best interests. Praying without ceasing does not mean talking without stopping, but living our lives in a spirit of prayer, inviting God into all our daily circumstances, continually building a closer relationship every day with our Father and High Priest. Meaningful prayer, to be effective, must be a dialogue rather than a monologue, for it is in our prayers and the time spent with God, we incrementally learn that God's will must always be sovereign, and though we may suffer temporary loss and disappointment, it will, in the end, work out the best for us.