Does God hear my prayers?

We know that He always listens to everything that we ask in accordance with His will. Precious privilege! The Christian himself would not desire anything to be granted him that was contrary to the will of God. But for everything that is according to His will, His ear is ever open to us, ever attentive. He always hearkens; He is not like man, often occupied so that he cannot listen, or careless so that he will not. God always hears us, and assuredly He does not fail in power: the attention He pays us is a proof of His good-will. We receive therefore the things that we ask of Him. He grants our requests. What a sweet relationship! What a high privilege! And it is one also of which we may avail ourselves in charity for others.

Verses 14, 15. "If we ask anything according to his will he heareth us." Our souls are sometimes much exercised before God as to prayer; for God, who in His goodness grants us all things that are good for us, reserves to Himself the choice, the means, and the time. However we have the comfort of knowing that God always hears us. He is not absent nor too high to listen to our prayers. But more than this: "we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him." What mercy! God is willing to hear the requests which such feeble creatures as ourselves send up to Him. God perhaps does not answer at once. This exercise of patience is blessed to our souls, and is often more salutary than an immediate answer. It acts upon our intercourse with God, it moulds it, and teaches us dependence. It is well for us to know that we should not pray with the idea of dictating to God. But the faith which has prayed nevertheless feels sure that God has heard, and this confidence consoles and sustains.

On the other hand we can enumerate precious answers to our feeble and oft faithless prayers, so that our hearts are not discouraged, nor weary, in the blessed labour of prayer when the answer is not forthcoming. God hears prayer, every prayer. His ear is open to the cry of His children. Heavy it never is. Rest assured that there is a divine and blessed meaning in the exercise of unanswered prayer. What power is it that sustains, in an unbroken continuity of prayer, for months and years—that supports the suppliant in the face of apparent neglect and refusal, as in the case of the “Syrophenician woman,” that keeps an Elijah prostrate as he pleads for rain from a sky of brass, or a Jacob wrestling throughout the night? What hidden power is that?

Pray I must, and cannot but pray, even though I am treated with a silence I cannot understand! Repelled I seem to be, but I am also compelled; my hopes are dashed, and yet, like Abram, I believe, not against improbabilities, but, strange to say, against hope itself! He “hoped against hope”! Oh! this is one of the mysteries in the life of faith, one of the enigmas in the history of the child of God, one of those secrets of the soul which has personal and intimate dealings with Him who seeth in secret and who will, in His own good time, reward openly. The power that rebukes is also the power that sustains. The God of holiness is the “God of all encouragement.”

God hears prayer, whether from individuals or companies. Nothing is more certain. Let us see to it that we are not negligent in this matter. See that it is not true of us, "Thou restrainest prayer before God." These are things for us all to think of and to question ourselves individually about. I could keep you here all night with tales to illustrate the value of prayer, but I will just say this — there is nothing more certain in my own experience than that God hears and answers prayer. That being so, surely we shall not be held guiltless if we restrain prayer before God. If we are down on our knees before God, assuredly He will grant our requests if they fulfil His conditions. Whatever the matter may be, men ought always to pray.

If it come to this, that we have prayed, and yet receive no direct answer, we should question ourselves, and ask the Father why. God looks at the heart, and He may delay the answer to bring out something. There is always some reason for it. Never allow a doubt as to the faithfulness of God; unbelief is evil, and only evil, continually. If we doubt, we are robbing God of His glory. Can anything be more heart-breaking than that?

We will turn to the Scriptures and see. Look first at Psalm 66:18. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." If we would have our prayers answered we must be right with God in secret. Our private life must tally with our public profession. Sin concealed, like a serpent in the bosom, takes all vitality from prayer. A bad conscience is a certain barrier in the way of our petitions being granted. God will not pour His blessings into unclean vessels. So the first condition for prevailing prayer is a good conscience.

Answers to prayer. He has engaged to answer the prayers of His people, and fulfil the desires of them that fear Him (Ps. 145:19); but it proves a long voyage sometimes before the praying saint has the return of his adventure. There comes often a long and sharp winter between the sowing time of prayer and the reaping. He hears us, indeed, as soon as we pray, but we often do not hear of Him so soon. Prayers are not long on their journey to heaven, but long coming thence in a full answer. Never was faithful prayer lost at sea. No merchant trades with such certainty as the praying saint. Some prayers, indeed, have a longer voyage than others, but then they come with the richer lading at last.

Sometimes we have speedy return of prayers — "In the day that I cried, thou answeredst me." While the church were at God's door praying for Peter's deliverance, Peter is knocking at theirs, to tell them their prayer is heard.

God does not always answer our prayers by granting the thing that we request. Frequently, by not granting our requests, He indicates that His answer is, No. In the history of one Old Testament character — Elijah — we have examples of prayer, both answered and unanswered, of a most striking and instructive sort.

Thus, humbled in His presence, every false hope gone, the remnant search and try their ways, and the end of the Lord is reached. In brokenness of spirit they cry, "Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. We have transgressed and have rebelled: Thou hast not pardoned. Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: Thou hast slain, Thou hast not pitied. Thou hast covered Thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through" (v.41-44). There is an important lesson here. It is useless to pray while persisting in sin. The man who does not seek to walk with God has no right to expect anything from Him. "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart." "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (Ps.37: 4; John 15: 7). This is the key to answered prayer. Obedience gives confidence. It is impossible to ask in faith when clinging to something that is grieving the Holy Spirit and dishonouring the Lord Jesus Christ. If prayer is not answered, if the heavens seem as brass, it is a solemn indication of a wrong state of soul, and should lead to self-judgment and the forsaking of every evil way.

The record about Daniel sheds light upon the hindrances, not so much to prayer, as to the answering of prayer. How many devout supplicants are perplexed at not receiving what they pray for! Well, we find that though the answer to Daniel's prayer was delayed, the delay was not because he was not heard. "Then he said to me, "Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me" (Dan.10:12,13).

Thus, then, there were spiritual impediments, not to Daniel's prayer, not to its being heard and granted, but to the answer reaching him. Here there is good encouragement. For we are apt to suppose that our breath in prayer is lost if an answer is not received at once. But exercise of heart in prayer is never fruitless, though the result may be long delayed. "Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God," was said to Cornelius; and we know not how long he had been kept waiting before Peter was sent to him with the answer: it may have been years (Acts 10). As in Daniel's case, so in Cornelius', and so in ours, there is a time as well as a mode of answering, which rests in the wisdom and grace of God. But so subtle is the working of unbelief that saints often pray and pray earnestly, but yet the last thing that they seem to expect is that God will grant their requests! Old Zacharias had prayed that he might have a son; so it appears from Luke 1:13. He had faith to pray, but not to believe that God would grant his prayer; for when the angel Gabriel tells him that his prayer is heard and that his wife should bear him a son, instead of rejoicing and worshipping, he asks, "How shall I know this?" But our God is very gracious; for this unbelief He chastens Zacharias with dumbness for a season, yet does not withdraw compliance with his petition. Prayer is a great reality, and we know not what unseen transactions are taking place over supplications which we suppose to have been unnoticed or unheard; but let us be assured that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. The case of Zacharias is an instance of what perhaps often occurs - that saints are in their faith and hope not up to the level of their own prayers.

Yes, there came into every heart in that little gathering, the consciousness that we were in the very presence of God, that we had received in the old man's story a gracious admonition for our slackness in prayer, and an assurance that God does hear our cries and will answer them at the right time.

We do well when we pray, but sometimes we grow weary when the answer seems long delayed, and we suppose that our prayers have not been heard; and some have even thought that God did not care, and that their matters were too small for His notice. But what is the truth? For sixty-five years one golden vial in heaven had been filling with this dear man's prayers, and as sweet odours they had been to God (Rev. 5:8). And how rich was the answer when it did come, not only for the one whose daily cries had gone into God's ear, but for us also who shared his joy, and for you, too, who are likely to be discouraged because you have prayed so long with no apparent answer, if this simple incident encourages you to continue in prayer with thanksgiving.