We have learned that God invites us to ask Him what we need (Matthew 7:7) because, number one, God wants us to be close to Him; number two, God wants us to always depend on Him; and number three, God wants to show His love to us. When we ask something from Him, we must be ready to get His answer which sometimes is not what we expect, like in this video clip ...
Though God wants us to express or ask for our needs to Him, He doesn't always answer our prayers. Last Sunday, we learned two possibilities why God doesn't fulfill our request. First, because what we ask is not according to His will. 1 John 5:14 says: "And this is the confidence we have in him, that he hears us if we ask anything according to his will." What we ask is not bad or wrong, but it's just not in line with His plans for us, like parents who want to have children, but God didn't give because God has special missions for them, or He wants them to adopt unwanted children. Therefore, it's essential to understand God's specific will for us. We need to spend time with Him in His words and prayers to know His will for our lives.
Illustration: A man shared his broken heart with me about twenty years ago. He was sobbing and couldn't believe that his fiancée had just canceled their marriage, and she moved to the United States. I felt sorry for him but encouraged him to trust the Lord and believe God had a better plan for him. Later he met a godly woman who better fit or more suitable for him. They got married and have two beautiful daughters. So, don't be disappointed with God when He doesn't fulfill your request. He knows what is best for you. His plans are better than ours.
The second possibility why God doesn't answer our prayer is that what we ask is wrong or with wrong motives. Probably this is the main reason why God does not answer many prayers. James 4:3 reminds us – "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." God will not answer our prayers when we ask for something to fulfill our fleshly or worldly desires, such as praying to win a lottery ticket, to get rich, or to pass a final exam without studying seriously. God also will not answer our prayers that would not bring spiritual benefits to us.
Today we will learn the third possibility of why God doesn't answer our prayer. It is because He has already decided something or made a plan and set a specific time to fulfill it. Therefore, we cannot ask for something that isn't according to His plan and time. Let me give you two examples. Numbers chapter 14 tells us that because all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and they didn't believe that God could bring them to the Promised Land, they had to spend in the wilderness for forty years. In verses 34-35, God says, "According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.' I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die."
During those forty years in the wilderness, no matter how hard they prayed to ask God to enter the Promised Land, God will not hear them. Even when Moses prayed to ask God to enter it, God didn't answer. Let's read Deuteronomy 3:25-26: "I pray, let me cross over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, those pleasant mountains, and Lebanon.' "But the Lord was angry with me on your account, and would not listen to me. So the Lord said to me: 'Enough of that! Speak no more to Me of this matter."
Another example is that the people of Israel were taken into captivity in Babylon for seventy years because they worshiped idols and didn't believe in the true God or YHWH, even though God had warned them for years through His prophets whom He sent to them. No matter how hard they prayed to return to the Promised Land, God won't hear them during those times. Let's read Jeremiah 29:10: "This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place." So, seventy years is the period that God has already set up. After that, God brought them back to Israel.
Both cases were the punishment for severe sins that the people of Israel had committed. They had been warned for years by many prophets to stop complaining, worshipping the idols, and trusting in God. But they refused to listen to God and His messengers. Can something like this happen to us nowadays? It can be even though we may not call it a 'punishment,' but a discipline or consequence of what we sow. Sometimes, we have to bear the consequences because we disobeyed God or made a wrong decision.
Illus.: A Christian lady was warned by God in many ways not to marry her boyfriend because he was not a true believer and had a bad character. But she ignored them and married him. Not long after they married, the husband became abusive (verbally, emotionally, and physically). He had affairs with several women and had children with them. This lady prayed for over twenty years, humbling before God and often fasting, asking God to change her husband, but her husband hasn't.
We know that God will always love us and never leave us. We see how during forty years of wandering, God took good care of them; He provided protection, food, clothes, and sandals that lasted for forty years (better and more robust than any modern branded clothes and sandals). Deuteronomy 29:5 says: "Yet the Lord says, "During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet."
God didn't forget or leave them during the seventy years of exile. Through Jeremiah, God told them to build a life in Babylon: "This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper" (Jeremiah 29:4-7).
God also still loves the lady that I told you about above. She asked for His forgiveness, and God forgave her. But there were specific prayers of her and the people of Israel that God didn't hear. Because of their disobedience, they also experienced inevitable suffering. Galatians 6:7 warns us that we will harvest what we sow:" Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap." Therefore, let's be obedient to God and trust in Him. He loves us and knows what is best for us.
May God help you know His will for you and enable you to obey Him. Amen!
