Our Prayers Are Always Answered

“I pray to God - my life a prayer - and wait for what He’ll say and do.”
Psalm 130:5

There is a beautiful Oswald Chambers quote that I remind myself of daily from his renowned devotional My Utmost for His Highest. “Has God trusted you with His silence - a silence that has great meaning? God’s silences are actually His answers... Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible— with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him— He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes.”

When Jesus taught us to pray, He was not teaching us a prayer to recite. He was teaching us something very valuable about the way the Father parents His children. He was showing us the level of pure and absolute trust we could have in a good Father who is wisdom and provision over all areas of our lives.

He began His prayer with praise, “hallowed be Thy Name”. I would challenge you to begin all of your prayers in this manner. Many times in my prayer life I’ve given God a to-do list instead of engaged in conversation with Him and spent time in His presence. Please do not miss out on making the most of prayer. It’s one of the most sacred gifts we have been given - to come boldly before the throne of God. To worship and study at His feet. If I begin my prayers with praise not only is the heart of God blessed, it places Him as the first priority of my life. Not my to-do list. Not the things I want easier or better here in my life on earth. I also find that fear has no place in the presence of God and is forced to leave. The absence of fear quiets our souls making room for His perfect peace and allowing us to listen to His voice. And when there is silence, it is an answer of learning to rest.

There is a special joy that cannot be taken from you in learning to rest in the Lord at the heart of all circumstances. Please do not mistake His silence as a pending response. Like a Good Shepherd, he cares for us, and in the silence we learn so much about Him. His confidence is contagious. The fact that He is not worried about our circumstance is all the reason we need not worry. The fact that He is able to sleep through the storms is all the more reason for us to trust. He also knows that in the silence we will seek Him out even harder and even deeper. And I have found in times of silence while I was waiting for my answer, I found infinitely more blessings and peace in the Divine fellowship I sought out with Him than I ever would have in the original answer I was seeking. Only He can satisfy our souls. He is the prize. He is what our hearts are yearning for. Where He is there is peace, there is fullness of joy and there is love.

Your pain, your worst trials, your deepest heartache, they matter so much to the Lord. Jesus wept bitterly with His friends when Lazarus died (John 11). Make your requests known to the Lord (Philippians 4:6). Cast all your cares upon the Lord, for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). He will answer all of your prayers. If silence is how He has answered your prayers today, I want to challenge you to rest in the quiet and calm of Him. Keep your eyes on Him and you will not sink. We pray “thy will be done” and He is constantly working things together for our good (Romans 8:28). His past faithfulness demands our present trust - when he calls us out of our comfort zone and into the unknown, and when silence is our answer.