›› Does God Always Answer?

Does God always answer our prayers? Some teach that this depends upon our faith, our sincerity, our humility, and our availability. I would say that God always answers us. However, as our Father, He is too good and too intelligent to give us all we ask, even when we express it with total sincerity and even when we insist. Sometimes He gives us only what is best for us. And sometimes His answer is “No.”

...If there are requests that go unanswered, they are far outnumbered by those which God has made to us. Before His apparent silence, the only intelligent response is to maintain the relationship, knowing that He will help us to accept the reality in which we live and will help us move beyond it.

To pray without ceasing does not mean that God will give in only after a long a repetitive insistence on our part. Rather, it means that we can feel His presence at any time and in any circumstance: washing dishes, driving a car, working behind a machine, or studying in a classroom. Praying without ceasing means that it is not absolutely necessary to close our eyes or kneel down. What matters is our inner disposition, not the position of our eyelids or our knees. Praying without ceasing is, quite simply, keeping ourselves open to dialogue, open to listen to Him, open to serve Him.

And so, if prayer means coming close to God and opening ourselves to His influence, the most enriching times will normally be our private encounters, our private moments, those privileged times reserved only for Him.

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Source: Robert Badenas. Meet Jesus. Autumn House, Lincolnshire, England, 1995. 137 pp.