Prayer

Psalm 145:18

"The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth."

          So, if you haven't figured out from the verse and the title of this entry what I will be talking about, today's topic is prayer. This is a rather difficult topic to explain and discuss because people will always ask, "Well, if I prayed for something, why didn't God give me what I asked for?!" or, "I prayed for God to heal this person and He didn't. Does He even care, then?" 

The answer is simple, really:

James 4:3

"When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

          This verse may seem a bit harsh in response to the second question. This is probably because I didn't give you a verse in response to it yet.

James 5:13-15

"Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven."

1 John 5:14-15

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

Romans 8:26

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

         These verses explain the importance of praying to God through our troubles and the fact that the Holy Spirit will show us what to pray for. The closer we get to God, the more our prayers will be directed toward what His will is for us. It's rather difficult to understand why God doesn't answer our prayers sometimes, and quite honestly, I cannot give you a good response. I know that God will answer our prayers but not necessarily in the way that we want Him to. When we deal with understanding why God doesn't give us what we ask for, we need to pray to Him and ask for peace for those unresolved moments of our lives that frustrate us to no end. All we can do is trust God that He will provide exactly what we need whether we know to ask for it or not.