When God Doesn’t Hear

But He didn’t.

In moments of desperation or in an act to avoid the pain we make our plea for God to intervene. Yet He often chooses not to intercept the pain and suffering which has allowed many of us to bear the emotional and spiritual scars to prove it.

We’ve all made those requests, those propositions, those promises. God if you’ll do A, then I’ll do B. It’s as if we can convince God to act on our behalf with a list of words meant to manipulate His plan.

It’s not that He doesn’t want to hear from us or turns a deaf ear toward our requests. It’s simply learning to understand how life’s circumstances, all of them, are being used to accomplish His purposes.

So, why doesn’t He answer all of our prayers?

God values our progress more than removing our pain. We’re on a journey to a certain destination; Christ-likeness. And it’s a sanctifying process. And sometimes that means encountering various trials in our life that are meant to chisel away some unnecessary traits in our character that deprive us from seeing Him more clearly or becoming more like His Son.

God values our long term relationship more than our momentary requests. God is our Father and it would be unloving of Him to remove every obstacle from our path and constantly give handouts that didn’t ensure a growing maturity in our relationship with Him. We are practicing delayed gratification; learning not to settle for momentary pleasures that would diminish the anticipation of our ultimate treasure.

God values who we become more than what we receive. We will never be complete apart from experiencing every season of life God desires. Yes, He gives good gifts. But He will also deny us some of our requests. And it will be for our benefit when He does. As our lives are constantly being renewed, we see our ever-present Father love us in a way that we could not know if all He did was give us what we asked.