Answered Prayer

by

Rev. Richard Fisher

God does not always answer our prayers the way we expect. It’s like the college student who wrote his parents, “Dear folks, I feel miserable because I have to keep writing for money. I feel ashamed and unhappy to have to ask for another hundred dollars; every cell in my body rebels. I beg on bended knee that you forgive me. Your son, Marvin. P.S. I felt so terrible I ran after the mailman who picked this up in the mailbox at the corner. I wanted to take this letter and burn it. I prayed that I could get it back, but it was too late."

A few days later he received a letter from his father. It said, "Your prayers were answered. Your letter never came!"

While God answers our prayers in different ways, it is important to have a regular prayer life. When I was a teenager, I realized my parents had limitations on what they could give me so I started working. By faith in Christ, I am a child of God. Therefore, I ask my Heavenly Father according to His will for anything because nothing is impossible with God. There has been times God would remove the mountain, trial, etc., and there are times He gives me strength to climb the mountain.

We are to pray and never give up. This is what Jesus was teaching in Luke 18:1-5. "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town that kept coming to him with the plea, “Grant me justice against my adversary.” For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, “Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!” We can take heart that we are praying to a loving and just God. Therefore, we should pray and not give up.

In its early days, Dallas Theological Seminary was in critical need of $10,000 to keep the work going. During a prayer meeting, renowned Bible teacher Harry Ironside, a lecturer at the school, prayed, "Lord, you own the cattle on a thousand hills. Please sell some of those cattle to help us meet this need." Shortly after the prayer meeting, a check for $10,000 arrived at the school, sent days earlier by a friend who had no idea of the urgent need or of Ironside's prayer. The man simply said the money came from the sale of some of his cattle! Today in the Word, MBI, January, 1990, p. 36.

So let us pray and never give up because we are praying to our Heavenly Father who loves us. He has the wisdom and power to answer our requests.