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{"id":13768,"date":"2014-10-04T10:20:25","date_gmt":"2014-10-04T15:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?p=13768"},"modified":"2014-10-04T10:20:41","modified_gmt":"2014-10-04T15:20:41","slug":"why-doesnt-god-answer-my-prayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2014\/10\/why-doesnt-god-answer-my-prayers.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"child-praying\"$ <\/a>Most of us know that simply praying for something you want is not the best way of praying.<\/p>\n

God is not a cosmic vending machine in which you put your prayer in the slot and the goodie you want drops into the tray at the bottom.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. God delights in any prayer and he\u00a0does\u00a0<\/em>want us to ask for our daily bread and for all our needs, but there is more to it than that.<\/p>\n

The real puzzle is why God does not answer our prayers for good stuff. Let\u2019s say you prayed that your marriage would stay together but it fell apart anyway. Why didn\u2019t God answer that prayer?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you prayed that your sister would be healed from cancer, but she died.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you prayed for your grandchildren to be protected, but they had a bad accident and were permanently injured.<\/p>\n

Why doesn\u2019t God answer those prayers?<\/p>\n

This is because most of the time\u2013even when we\u2019re asking for good things\u2013we\u2019re praying in the wrong way.<\/p>\n

God can\u2019t give the right answer if we ask the wrong question. If you say, \u201cWhat color is square?\u201d that\u2019s a question that can\u2019t be answered\u2013even if you think it is a sensible question, it\u2019s still not a question that can be answered, and this is the problem. We too often pray asking the wrong question or asking for the wrong thing\u2013even if it really, really seems like the right thing to us.<\/p>\n

This is because God has the big picture. He sees the whole thing and his perfect plan is for all of us to grow into the perfect and complete beings he has created us to be.<\/p>\n

Therefore he knows how our lives and struggles fit into the whole plan.\u00a0Continue Reading<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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