James H. Hooks

I prayed and received no answer:
There are times when I pray that an answer comes immediately. There are other times when it seems the answer never comes. How does that make us feel? When a prayer is answered immediately we feel good, blessed and seemingly able to accomplish anything.
However when an answer does not come we have a feeling of emptyness, that God has left us at a time when we needed Him the most. We think that God does not care for me anymore. We visualize many ways that God will answer our prayer and it does not happen. We ask, why God?
If you had or having this experience there is good news. Because God does not answer our prayer does not mean that He does not plan on giving an answer. It does not mean that God has left us or forgotten about you or does not love you. It is at those times when our answers are delayed that we pray more, read God’s word more for answers. It is those times when we are in the valleys of life that God grows our faith, strengthens our will to draw close to Him and keeping the faith gets harder with each passing day but also grows our faith. It is a time of testing,learning, growing that we never would have had happen without the delay. It is those valleys that God trains us not to believe what we see but assures us that we will see what we believe.
Jesus is Lord of the mountain top. He is also Lord of the valley. No matter how low the valley bring never forget the promise of Jesus who said, I will never leave you or forsake you. Rest assured Jesus will answer your prayers, however don’t expect an answer in a manner we visualize the answer to come. His answer is always opposite of what we can see. The reason for this is that when the answer comes we know that it can only be from God and not circumstance. In a way that we will have to give Him credit.
Rest assured God loves you still. It is these times when we have to depend completely on God and when we draw nearer to Him, He draws nearer to us.
Yes, God delays answer to our prayers not because He is drawing further away from us but that these are times He want us to draw closer to Him.
God never lies, God never fails. Keep standing on God’s word and His promise. Keep the faith and never give up in your prayers. Pray on, pray on, pray on until the answer comes.