It’s recorded in Luke 11: I that the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. He eventually taught them the prayer that’s called the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer is very basic to Christians around the world. Every Christian is expected to memorise it by heart since it’s the model prayer for them. It normally appears everywhere in the life of the church: in its sacraments and liturgy and both private and public prayer since it’s one that Christians value. However, there are a number of people who have questioned if God really answers our prayers. John Kabuga is such a man. He says that after completing his university education, some five years ago, he has constantly and daily prayed to God to help him get a job. “However, God has stubbornly refused to answer my prayers. I’m still languishing at my parents’ home, with only odd jobs here and there to sustain me.” He adds that he stopped praying. “I felt that God wouldn’t answer my prayers and gave up. But what I’ve not given up is looking for decent employment.” Many people have been in Kabuga’s shoes. In a poem titled “Argument with God” by John Howard Reid, the protagonist tells of his pain after praying daily for his child, who was sick in hospital to be healed though God “refused” to listen to his argument (read prayer). However, is it prudent to give up hope after your prayer has been constantly refused to be answered? Are you one of those people who believe that there are some prayers that God can blatantly refuse to answer, and that He is just an imaginary friend who you cannot put on His shoulders all your troubles? Matthew 21:22 says, “ And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith,” while James 4: 3 says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” In an article appearing in Bible.org, John F. Walvoord writes, “In my fifty years of leadership and teaching at Dallas Theological Seminary, I saw many dramatic answers to prayer. But I have also seen many of my prayers go unanswered. The answered prayers have built my faith, strengthened my walk with God, and given me hope in the midst of perplexing problems. But the silence of God creates tension for me. I find God’s silence difficult or sometimes impossible to explain.” He goes on to quote from the book of 1 John 5:16 which says: “There are prayer requests that God cannot answer because they are not according to His will and not for our best interest,” and concludes “As we praise Him for His faithfulness, seek His will and glory, pray faithfully and wait patiently until God’s time, He will answer us.” The bible is quite categorical that we should exercise patience since God will eventually answer our prayers, if the prayer is not for selfish gains. A person who prays for God to kill another person because they are enemies, or a child who prays to God to get a car on his birthday cannot expect such prayers to be answered. There are many people who have prayed to God to deliver them genuine things and they succeeded. Abram must have prayed for all those hundreds of years to have a child and he got a child. What we should understand is that our God is an understanding God and what we need to do is exercise patience in our prayers as we faithfully believe that He would eventually answer them.
