"Why doesn't God answer my prayer?"

Reading in the Grand Story this morning from Isaiah...

"Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, or His ear dull that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear." (Isaiah 59:1-2)

What goes through our minds when we pray and it feels like God doesn't hear us, or when we beg God to do something for us and it seems like He doesn't come through? How do we interpret that? What do we think about God in that moment? That He doesn't care about me? Doesn't love me? Doesn't exist? Does it even cross our minds that the problem is with us and not God? Is that a category that we even think in?

Proverbs 19:3 is a familiar interpretation on the silence of God and our reactions to it: "People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the LORD." (NLT) But scripture says it's not that God can't or won't act on our behalf; it's because we are living and asking at cross purposes with Him. God has a purpose: to draw people from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people to Himself through Jesus Christ and make them a Kingdom. That's what the whole Bible is about, start to finish. That is Plan A, and there is no Plan B.

But that is not our purpose. Our purpose is to live as comfortably as possible for as long as possible, surrounded only by people who will tell us how great we are -- even if it cost us our freedom, our humanity, or our very lives. The apostle James says the source of our broken relationships and jacked up lives is this very thing: "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." (James 4:1-4)

"Enemies of God." That's what our sin makes us. And then we have the gall to be indignant when God doesn't answer our selfish prayers and grant us our three wishes. Like He owes us something! Ha! He owes us something, alright. Thank God, Jesus took what we are owed on Himself on the cross, and left it in the grave when He rose from the dead!

New category to pray in: Change what I want, God. Sync my heart to Yours. Align my life to Your purposes. "Incline my heart to Your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!" (Psalm 119:36) You can't expect the power of God on your behalf apart from the purpose of God. The PURPOSE of the POWER of God on your behalf is to bring about the Kingdom of God IN YOU. "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." (Eph. 3:20-21)