YOU say you don’t pray anymore because God doesn’t answer your prayers. I understand. And I don’t blame you. Because if I believed there was no one out there listening to me, I’d stop praying too.
But why do you believe God doesn’t answer your prayers? Is it the silence? Is it the non-resolution of the problem? Or is it the fact that you’re not getting what you want despite storming the heavens with your prayers?
You may have prayed to pass the test. And then you failed. So you draw the quick conclusion that God didn’t answer your prayer. Perhaps, He did. Perhaps, the answer was No. No, you’re not going to make it.
But then you have to listen to what else God may be saying.
Perhaps, he’s saying, not this time. Maybe, next time. Do more. Try harder. You’ll make it. Or maybe—this is not the path for you. You have turned on the wrong fork so I am taking you back to where you should be. This failure will lead you elsewhere—to the path I have laid out for you. Perhaps.
Perhaps, He speaks. Perhaps, we don’t hear Him.
It is not easy, after all, to hold a conversation with someone who is completely silent. Someone you cannot see. Someone you cannot touch. Someone whose presence you cannot physically ascertain.
After a while, perhaps, you tire of your monologue. Is there someone out there listening? As the silence stretches, your impatience grows, you wonder how long you have to wait—to hear something.
Isn’t it ironical that in the silence, we still cannot hear?
I cannot tell you how to hear God’s voice. But I can tell you that He is there. And in all the moments when you think you are alone, I can tell you that you are not.
I have never heard God’s voice. But He has always given me the answers. And in my quiet moments, many, many moons later, it is only then when God grants me the wisdom to understand His answers.
So I have learned to accept God’s answers even though I don’t understand them when He gives them to me because one day I will see the light. And I know. Because I have seen it.
I don’t believe God ignores us. I believe He answers all our prayers. But most times, His answers get drowned out by the cacophony of our demands and our desires, our insistence and our impatience, our sense of entitlement that He, as the all-knowing God, should simply make life easy for us.
It is not God who lacks the capacity to answer our prayers. It is we who lack the capacity to understand His answers. When we say God doesn’t answer our prayers—what we actually mean is that we are not getting the answers we want.
You say you don’t pray anymore because God doesn’t answer your prayers. I understand. If I believed there was no one out there listening to me, I’d stop praying too. But I don’t believe I am alone. So I will pray for you.