Prayer is one of the first things a child learns about when growing up in the Bible belt. Always pray, pray, pray. Whether it be about the ladybug outside your window making it safely home to his family or the serious stuff like a loved one being sick. For some, it becomes like a second nature, like talking to the little voice in your head. Which is good, right? We always ask little 'nothings' on a daily basis. Sometimes it's so small and insignificant in our minds we don't even notice we are doing it. Other times we pray so sincerely, on our knees with tears streaming down our faces crying out to God that it's hard to imagine that He's not sitting right there with us holding on.
It's times like those, when we are genuinely asking God to give us something, do something for us, heal someone for us, make something work out for us, that we need and yearn for an answer. We want our problem to be fixed, we want a yes or a no. Just an answer.
Occasionally we get knocked down with the shock of a prayer being so blatantly answered right in our faces that we can't even talk out loud about it without becoming emotional. We prayed about something and the next thing we know it's been answered. The reality of God being right there is overwhelming and it seems crazy that we ever doubted He was listening.
Then it seems as if the majority of the time nothing is ever answered. That our prayers just float off into nothingness and nobody ever hears them. We get used to those times. We get used to crying out "why" in the shower as our tears mix with the water. We think it's ordinary that there is never any answer. The moments when we are praying so sincerely for the healing of a loved one or something that we need so very badly...and nothing happens.
But that's not the case; just because we feel as if there is no answer, doesn't mean there isn't one. God is working in all of our lives every day. Every little prayer we pray is heard whether we think so or not. Sometimes the answer is just "not right now" or "I have better things planned for you" and we just can't see that at the moment.
Our God is omnipotent and we are His children that He loves dearly. If He lets something seemingly horrible in our eyes happen, it is for a reason that we cannot fathom in the plan that He has for us. He has every day mapped out and knows our prayers even before we pray them. He yearns for us to pray to Him, for His children to talk to Him, daily.
When we feel as though our prayers are not being heard, we must remain faithful. When it seems as though God is letting bad things happen, He is still good. Because He is listening, He is good, and He hears us calling out to him; always.
