What do you do when you have prayed for something for an extended period of time and have not seen the answer to your prayers?  I have been asked that question in various forms through the years and I have asked it myself.  It comes most often in connection with healing, relationships, and salvation.  Many of us have prayed about health issues for years – about our own or about someone we love without seeing the healing. Others have prayed for years for a marriage to be healed or for God to send them someone to marry and that has yet to happen.  Still others have prayed hundreds of prayers for loved ones to come to the Lord or be set free from addictions and they continue to live lives absent form Jesus.

When we have prayed for a long time for things that are consistent with God’s will, and have not yet seen a positive outcome what do we make of that? Some decide that God is simply not going to answer that prayer and so they stop praying.  Others think that God must not hear their prayers and so they stop asking.  Others begin to believe that a certain situation is beyond God’s remedy and so they simply put that prayer in the box marked “For Another Time  – if Ever.”

As with many things there are mysteries related to how and when God answer’s prayer. Nowhere in scripture does God guarantee an immediate answer to prayer that looks like what we envisioned as the answer.  We, of course, have become the microwave generation who can hardly stand to wait eight minutes for a hot meal much less weeks, months, or years for answered prayer.  The biblical model contains examples of prayers that were answered in fairly short order while others took years or decades.  The Hebrew people cried out for deliverance from Egypt for several hundred years before God called Moses to be the great deliverer. Abraham and Sara had almost certainly prayed for a child for years before God promised to give them the child they desired.  But even then, another twenty-five years passed before that promise was fulfilled.  Others, according to the book of Hebrews believed God for a prayer that was answered after their deaths.

The promises of the New Testament call us to some extended periods of prayer and waiting as well. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus encouraged us to “ask, seek, and knock” and promised us that we will receive what we pray for (Mt.7: 7-8). However, those words in the original language carry the sense of enduring, persistent prayer.  They might be best translated as “keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking.”  In Luke 18, Jesus told his disciples a parable about a widow who kept going to the local judge asking for justice in a certain matter.  Although the judge was not a righteous man, he finally granted her request because of her persistence.  Luke prefaced the parable with the statement, “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up” (Lk.18:1).  The idea is not that our heavenly Father has to be hounded into answering prayers, but that we should not give up praying until a righteous prayer is answered.

When we find ourselves praying for those things that God has promised or things that are consistent with his will we should not give up.  When we are not seeing heaven move in response to our prayers, we often assume that God is simply not acting on our behalf. Yet Daniel (Daniel 10) prayed and fasted for twenty-one days without evidence that God was responding to his prayer.  And yet, on the twenty-first day an angel appeared and told him that he had been sent in response to Daniel’s prayer as soon as he had uttered it.  For twenty-one days a battle had raged in the “heavenlies” while a demonic prince had resisted the angel of the Lord in his attempt to come to Daniel.  On the twenty-first day of Daniel’s enduring prayer and fasting, Michael the archangel was sent to take up the battle so that the first angel could continue with his mission.  I have often wondered if Michael would have been dispatched if Daniel had given up on his prayer.

My point is that simply because we are not seeing a manifestation of our answered prayer in the natural realm, it does not mean that God is not moving on that prayer in the spiritual realm. But let me offer a couple of thoughts regarding long-term prayers and the question of should we continue to pray.

1. God promises that he will give us whatever we ask for in the name of Jesus that is consistent with his will. By faith, stand on those promises.
2. Be sure that what you are praying for is consistent with God’s will.  Just because something would make us happy in our flesh does not make it consistent with God’s will.  I know many people who have prayed for things that, if granted, would have plunged them into sin or drawn them away from God. A loving Father cannot answer prayers that would place his children in danger. However, a loving Father always wants to provide for his family and alleviate suffering – especially in the area of healing.
3. Ask God if you should keep on praying.  If he says, “Yes,” then keep praying.  If the godly desire still persists in your heart keep on praying. If he says, “No,” then stop praying of if the desire is taken from your heart stop praying.
4. Have others join you in prayer and fasting for the thing you are praying about.
5. Sincerely ask the Holy Spirit to show you anything that is blocking your answer to prayer.
6. If the prayer always brings you into a place of despair because of hurtful memories or feelings surrounding the thing you are praying about, ask God to give you hope about it or pray for it once a week instead of daily.
7. Consistently declare God’s promises regarding answered prayer and claim them on behalf of the prayers you are offering.
8. Be sure that you are emotionally healed and spiritually mature enough that you could steward the answer to your prayer well rather than damaging what God entrusts to you.  Many single Christians pray for a relationship that they would damage because they are not healed or mature enough yet to keep from damaging it.  They think that the relationship would be the catalyst for their healing or spiritual growth but, in actuality, their healing and spiritual growth would be the catalyst for God giving them a relationship to care for.
9. Finally, always pray and never give up.

Be blessed today!