Three Ways God Answers Prayer

We want God to answer our prayer our way, but there is a larger story going on, so we wait to see the way God answers prayer.

Most weekends, when my children were young, I made buns for lunch. First, I would make the bread dough in a breadmaker, then take the dough out, cut the dough into the number of buns needed and then stretch out the dough before twisting it into a bun.

Then I would let them rise before putting them into the oven.

Fresh hot buns for lunch. Yum.

The stretching and folding of the dough add strength to the bread. In addition, all those gluten networks are helped to develop.

Within my prayer life, I sometimes wonder if God is stretching and folding me. It is developing me into someone with deeper glutenous faith networks that give me strength and texture.

I keep praying, but my prayers seem to go unanswered because they don’t get answered in the way I want.

Is God listening? I keep praying, but nothing seems to change.

It’s so frustrating. You seriously wonder if God is there, does God care, and does prayer make a difference.

Surely if God loved me, then God would change the situation?

I have concluded that God does answer prayer, but maybe the answer is not what we expect.

Maybe God’s hands are tied, as such, because of the free will God has given humanity to choose whether to follow God or not. There is a stubbornness in all of us that flexes its muscles against God.

The parent gives wisely.

One of the pictures we have of our relationship with God is that of a loving parent. Jesus, fully human and fully divine, directed us to speak to God as to a loving parent.

‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.

But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

‘When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that 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.

‘Pray then in this way:

Our Father in heaven,
    hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
    Your will be done,
        on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
        as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
        but rescue us from the evil one.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Six times in this passage, Jesus describes the one to whom we pray as a Father. We must be careful not to transfer our negative experiences of fathers onto the perfect loving father contained within God.

Instead, look to the story of the Loving Father as a model of generosity, grace, and long-term parenthood as to what God as a Father is like.

In Luke, we find Jesus describing the parental way of giving to a child’s requests.

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? Luke 11:11-12

God does not give us something opposite and harmful to our simple childlike requests.

I have found that there are generally three ways God answers prayer.

Three Ways God Answers Prayer

1. Yes

God gives you exactly what you want, how, and when you want it.
God gives you what you want, but it might differ from what you expected. This is more common, and it teaches us to wait expectantly and with a desire to see God’s creativity at work.
God says ‘Yes’ to where the person praying is the one that knows they need to change. The penitent in Psalm 51 cries, ‘Create in me a clean heart’.

God will always say ‘Yes’ to this prayer.

Change my heart Oh God, make it ever true.Change my heart Oh God, may I be like You.

Change my heart Oh God, make it ever true.Change my heart Oh God, may I be like You.
You are the potter, I am the clay,Mold me and make me, this is what I pray.
Change my heart Oh God, make it ever true.Change my heart Oh God, may I be like You. Eddie Espinosa

2. No

God says ‘No’ when God knows it is not good for you. But do you really know what’s best for you? Does a child truly know what is best for their own development?
God says ‘No’ when it is not in God’s long-term plans for you. God has a purpose for your life that will require you to hear the words ‘No’ and grow a need to trust. Paul had a prayer request that God said ‘No’ to. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
God says ‘No’ when it will require God to cross another person’s free will. We want God to change the other person. Recently I had a little two-year-old complain to me about his brother. He wanted me to change his brother. I could talk to his brother, but ultimately his brother needed to decide to change himself.

3. Not yet

God has a larger story going on that we know very little of. We know it is ultimately good, but our place is to grow in patience and look with a hopeful childlike expectation to see how the story unfolds.

How a good parent treats their child

God is in the act of making us into little Christs.

Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else. C.S. Lewis

A good parent disciple’s their child.

The writer of Hebrews writes about God as one who is focused on our long-term Christ-likeness.

Have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children?

My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline,
but don’t be crushed by it either.
It’s the child he loves that he disciplines;
the child he embraces, he also corrects.

God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out.
He’s treating you as dear children.
This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children.
Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves.
Would you prefer an irresponsible God?
We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live?
While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them.
But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best.
At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain.
Later, of course, it pays off big-time, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God. Hebrews 12: 5-11

Lord, make me.

This is the prayer that God will always answer with a resounding ‘Yes.’

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen. Prayer of St. Francis

We want God to answer our prayer our way, but a larger story is going on, so we wait to see how God answers prayer. Perhaps prayer is a stretching and strengthening act of a loving God upon ourselves.

Quotes to consider

A Franciscan Blessing

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
(Author unknown)

One can no more pray too much than one can love too much; Victor Hugo Les Misérables
We are unfinished creatures– longing, reaching, stretching towards fulfillment. We express these desires for completion in prayer. Eugene Peterson
Prayer is openness to God in faith. It is allowing the life of God to flow into and through us. This is the faith that we receive as a gift when we turn in openness and trust to God. David Benner
Prayer tills the soil of the soul and unearths the clods of stories that lie beneath the surface. Dan Allender
There certainly must be some who pray constantly for those who never pray at all. Victor Hugo Les Misérables
With regard to the modes of prayer, all are good, provided that they are sincere. Victor Hugo Les Misérables

Questions to answer

What has been your experience of how God answers prayer?
How does it feel that God wants to make you into a ‘little Christ.’
What’s it like to keep praying for something, but the answer feels like it is either ‘No’ or ‘Not yet?’