Why Doesn't God Hear My Prayers?
As a minister, I often hear this question directed to me from time to time. "Why doesn't God hear my prayers?" This question is usually raised when a person has been struggling with some personal crisis for a long time.One incident that sticks in my memory the most was when on one of my many ministerial visits I found myself in the waiting room of a local mental health facility. On arrival I saw there was only one other man in the waiting room and as I entered he looked up at me and noticed the blue cross that I wear in my jacket lapel. He had the most pathetic and sad look on his face, and he asked me, "Are you a minister?" I said, "Yes." He began to weep and proceeded to share with me his almost hopeless struggle with depression. Through his tears, he said he regularly went to Church and that he knew God answered prayers, but he had been constantly praying for his depression to go away but nothing seems to be happening. With a sense of desperation in his voice, he asked the question, "Why doesn't God seem to hear my prayers?" At that moment the nurse called his name and I quickly handed him my card as he got up to go into the facility.
Afterwards I gave his question some thought and then it came to me that sometimes maybe we are not actually praying at all.I remember seeing a behaviorial psychology experiment using a lab rat that was given cocaine every time it pushed down a little bar. Within a day or two that rat was beating down on that little bar like crazy until it forgot all about eating, drinking or raising his rat family. God in His wisdom knows that if prayer was only just asking Him for what we wanted and "puff", we immediately got it, most of us would become like that poor rat, banging away like crazy at Heavens gate for more and more of what we want and paying very little attention to who God is, what do we really need and also forgetting about our responsibility to our family and others. Can you imagine what the world would be like if everything everybody asked for was immediately granted! Speak about chaos!
No, I believe God's purpose in prayer is for us to get to know who He is and His holiness rather than to get Him to do our bidding. That does not mean that He will not hear our prayers and answer, but His purpose in not to make us happy, but to make Him known to us and others and by so doing bring about our own true joy and happiness.
Brother Roy