What To Do When Your Prayers Seem Unanswered Success or Failure

[trsrinheaven (trsrinheaven)]

"For a lack of knowledge people are destroyed" is the main reason for WHY people succeed and why people fail. Right and wrong thinking is the key. “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he” Renewing our minds causes us to be transformed from the fallen worlds thinking, allowing and causing God’s word to bring about Gods will in our live.
Romans 12:1-3
This information is a beginning for you to see success God’s way. “Unless the Lord build your life you labor in vain that build it”

What To Do When Your Prayers Seem Unanswered
By Andrew Wommack

All of us have had experiences where it didn't look like our prayers were answered. But is that really what happened? The Bible says in Matthew 7:7, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be given unto you." Is that true? Well, many people say it couldn't mean what it appears to say, because they can cite experiences where they asked for something and didn't receive. But you've got to make the decision stated in Romans 3:4, "to let God be true, and every man (or in this case, every circumstance) a liar." God's Word is true...not our experiences.

This is one of the reasons so much doctrinal division has come about. The Word is clear in its doctrine, but when someone tries the Word and doesn't see the promised results, rather than admit that they could have failed, they say something like "that must have passed away with the apostles," or "it must not have been God's will," etc. God is not the one who failed to answer, but rather we are the ones who have failed to receive.

What actually happens when we ask in prayer is that God moves immediately and gives us the answer in our spirit. We are responsible for believing that, and acting accordingly to bring the answer into the physical world. God is a spirit (John 4:24) and He always supplies our answer to our spirit man. Through faith we then give physical substance (Hebrews 11:1) to what God has done.

We are like a spiritual transformer. Spiritual power has to be converted to physical power just as radio signals have to be converted into frequencies audible to our physical ear. You don't hear the actual signal broadcast by the radio station, but rather a signal that has been picked up by a receiver and translated into an audible sound. For a person to say that there aren't any radio signals where they are, just because they cannot hear them, is not true. They are there, but they are on a higher frequency that the human ear can hear. They have to be "demodulated" into a lower frequency which we can hear.

This is the way our answers to prayer come. God moves in the spirit world and gives us our answer by faith and we convert it into a physical reality through our actions. That is not to say that we are the one who produced the answer by our own power. It is God who works the miracles, but they do come through us. Without Him, we can do nothing, but he has made us joint heirs together with Christ so that he does nothing without us. Ephesians 3:20 says, "Now unto Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, ACCORDING TO THE POWER THAT WORKETH IN US." We have a part to play in receiving from God. Ignorance of this has been our greatest problem.

Now you can understand much more clearly what Mark 11:24 means, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." You receive in your spirit by faith immediately, and it shall come to pass in the physical later. It may be one minute, one day, or one year, but you cannot waiver in your belief that God has already answered your prayer. The time that it takes for God's answer to be manifest in the physical is dependent upon many things, but it is not God who determines that. God answers immediately. Remember, it says you must believe that you receive WHEN YOU PRAY. God isn't asking you to believe something that isn't true. You do receive instantly in your spirit, then it is manifest in the physical later.

An example of this is in Daniel 9 and 10. In chapter 9, Daniel prayed a prayer, and while he was still praying, his answer to prayer came in the form of Gabriel giving him "skill and understanding" in the thing he desired. That's a quick answer to prayer, but in verse 23, Gabriel says that God had sent him forth at the beginning of his prayer. God moved instantly, but it took about 3 minutes for the answer to appear in the physical realm. In Daniel chapter 10, he prayed another prayer, and his answer took three full weeks to manifest. What a difference!

Most people would say, "I wonder why God answered that first prayer in three minutes, and the second prayer took three weeks. But in Daniel 10:12, we find that God answered the second prayer instantly too. Praise God! The Lord was not the variable. In this case it was a demonic force, "the prince of the kingdom of Persia," that had hindered the answer to Daniel's prayer.

Whether it be satan, or people's wills, or unbelief, or any of a number of other possible hindrances, it's important that you know that it's not God who seems so unpredictable (Psalm 102:27, Malachi 3:6). In fact, this is a fundamental truth that you must be established in before you can even begin to do anything about speeding up the answer to your prayer. If you have prayed a prayer in line with God's Word, God answers it immediately (1 Jn. 5:14-15; Dan. 9, 10). If you understand that, then you are ready to begin releasing your faith over bringing that answer into complete manifestation.

[trsrinheaven (trsrinheaven)]

A Call To Prayer
By Andrew Wommack

}I think all Christians would agree that we should be praying for our nation during this critical time in our history. Judicial activists are no longer interpreting the law but attempting to legislate from the bench. By using these activist judges in our courts, the ungodly are systematically attempting to remove all reference to, and influence of, God in our society. It’s even become politically correct to discriminate against Christians. Christianity is also the only religious influence that can be prohibited by law. We need the intervention of God to turn this situation around.

Prayer is a powerful weapon. But, there is a right and a wrong way to pray. Just like any powerful weapon, without the proper instruction, it may be useless or someone could get hurt. Wrong prayer is not only ineffective, it can also release the power of the devil. I’ve experienced this firsthand.

In the beginning of my walk with the Lord, I listened to a teaching which used an example of a teenager who felt very ineffective in witnessing for the Lord. This young man prayed and asked the Lord to do whatever it would take to use him as an effective witness in his high school. He specifically asked God to give him cancer and take his life if that was the only way he could show others the power of God in his life. The next day he came down with leukemia. At his funeral, four of his classmates accepted the Lord because of the way he had dealt with his terminal illness.

At that time I didn’t know that God had redeemed us from sickness. I had been taught that in God’s sovereignty, He controlled everything that happened to us. So, I bought into this teaching “hook, line, and sinker.” I then gave this tape to a close friend of ours. She also accepted it as truth, to the point that she prayed this same prayer. The next morning she was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with leukemia. At her funeral, four people accepted the Lord also.

Since then, I have learned the truth. God did not answer those prayers by giving two teenagers leukemia. Certainly, God received a measure of glory when those eight people accepted the Lord, but God doesn’t kill one of His children so that others can be saved. Satan is the killer; it was Satan who took advantage of the open doors these wrong prayers created. That’s why it’s important to know how to pray.

On this National Day of Prayer, millions of Christians will be praying for God to move in our nation. Typically, they will be pleading with an angry God to turn from His impending judgment and have mercy. That’s wrong praying. And as I’ve testified, wrong praying can open the door to wrong results.

There is a right way to pray for our nation. But first, we need to recognize that God isn’t angry any more. The war between God and man is over. That’s what the angels proclaimed at the birth of Jesus. Luke 2:14 says,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

These angels weren’t saying that from then on, peace would reign on earth and wars between people would cease. That certainly hasn’t happened. They were proclaiming the end of the war between God and man. Jesus paid a price that is infinitely greater than the sins of the whole human race. God loves the world, not only the church, but the whole world. He’s already paid for their sins as the Scriptures say in 1 John 2:2,

“And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Therefore, His mercy is now extended to all man, not the judgment we read about in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God’s punishment was poured out on individuals and entire nations. In the New Testament, God’s judgment was poured out on Jesus. Now God’s mercy and grace are ours.

Through His mercy, we avoid getting the bad things we deserve, and through His grace, we receive the good things we don’t deserve. The nearly-too-good-to-be-true news of the Gospel is that we don’t get what we deserve, we get what we believe. Jesus has made all that God is, and has, available to us, and it is through faith that we access that grace (Rom. 5:2).

So, the typical Christian is making intercession to an angry God, asking Him to turn from His fierce wrath, but that’s the wrong way to pray. I can just hear someone say, “But that’s exactly what people did in the Old Testament!” That’s true, but there is a major difference between the Old and New Covenant. That difference is Jesus. Jesus has forever changed the way we approach God and how we appropriate His favor.

Let’s look at an Old Testament example of intercession that will be used by many as the benchmark for the way we should pray on this National Day of Prayer. Moses was pleading with God for the nation of Israel. The children of Israel molded a golden calf and had an orgy as they worshiped it. The Lord became so angry that He told Moses he would destroy those people and make a new nation through Moses’ seed. Moses told the Lord in Exodus 32:12,

“Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.”

It’s amazing that a mere human being had the audacity to speak to God this way! What’s even more amazing is that God allowed Moses speak to Him this way and actually repented (Ex. 32:14). This example will be held up all across this land as the standard we are supposed to emulate.

However, this is not the way that we, as New Testament believers, should approach God. Galatians 3:19 refers to Moses as a mediator. The dictionary defines a mediator as, “someone who seeks to resolve differences between two or more conflicting parties.” It was appropriate for Moses to act as a mediator, because Jesus had not yet come and the atonement for man’s sins had not yet been made. God and man were not reconciled.

But now, because of Jesus, God has been reconciled to man. All that is left is for man is to be reconciled to God, and that should be our message (2 Cor. 5:19-20). To approach God as an adversary who is ready to destroy us is to approach God without Jesus. It doesn’t honor the mediation that Jesus purchased. First Timothy 2:5 says,

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

When Jesus became our Mediator, He put all other mediators out of business. In the days of Moses, it was appropriate and necessary for him to act as a mediator and intercede for his nation, pleading with God to turn from his wrath. Why, because Jesus had not yet come and taken His place as the only Mediator. Now that Jesus has come and has paid for the sins of the whole world, it is wrong to continue to pray the way Moses did. It’s against everything Christ accomplished. In other words, it is anti-Christ. I know those words are strong, but they are the truth.

How then should a New Testament believer intercede for their nation? Start by praising God for what He has already accomplished through Jesus. Then take your place in what Christ has already done, and use your authority as a believer to speak God’s blessing over your nation instead of the curses that Christians so often pronounce. It’s really that simple. There is tremendous authority given to us if we will use it, and there is awesome power in our blessing.

Before I learned these truths, I used to say that God would have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah if He didn’t judge America, because we are just as deserving of judgment as they were. But now that I know the truth, I say, “If God does judge America, He will have to apologize to Jesus, because Jesus satisfied God’s demands of justice.”

That doesn’t mean that America is safe from the consequences of continuing on its current path. God won’t judge America; He has already judged Jesus on our behalf. But the farther we walk away from the Lord, the farther we get away from His protection. God won’t force Himself or His blessings on us. We have to pursue them and obtain them through faith. Without a change in the hearts of the people and a change in the direction we are headed, we will forsake our own mercies (Jon. 2:8) and reap death instead of life (Rom. 6:16).

Jamie and I encourage you to be a New Testament intercessor on this National Day of Prayer. Honor Jesus by approaching a loving God who has already made every provision for the revival this nation so desperately needs. Speak words of faith that release the goodness Jesus has so graciously provided. And then do your part in sharing this good news with your friends and neighbors.

Most of America will be praying for a move of God, but I will be praying for a move of God’s people. God has already done His part. It’s up to us to take this good news to the world. God isn’t mad anymore. He’s not even in a bad mood. God loves us. Glory to God in the highest and, on earth, peace, good will toward man.

In this article I’ve only touched on the subject of prayer and intercession. I have a five-part series entitled A Better Way to Pray that will answer many of your questions concerning prayer. I believe it will revolutionize your prayer life and help you avoid many of the mistakes that I have made.

[yaakov (yaakov)]

<font size="+1">Unanswered Prayers by Dr. Lisa Aiken</font>

I had gone to Montreal in December for a friend's wedding. I was unprepared for the bitter cold and its numbing effect on my sightseeing interests. The day after my arrival, I decided to go to an underground shopping mall where I could purchase some warm winter boots. As I hailed down a taxi, the wind lashed across my face. I gave the driver the address of a store that an acquaintance had recommended and I arrived at my destination some 15 minutes later. I paid the driver, exited the cab, and tried to get my bearings. By the time I realized that I was in a totally residential neighborhood instead of anywhere near a shopping mall, the driver had sped away.

I was hopelessly lost. There were only attached houses sitting atop steps as far as the eye could see. I had no choice but to knock on someone's door and hope that they would be kind to a stranger. I climbed the first set of stairs that I saw. As I reached the top, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a reassuringly familiar sight. A mezuzah was affixed to the doorpost of the home. Presumably, the owner was Jewish and might be willing to help a fellow Jew.

I rang the doorbell, not knowing what to expect. After what seemed like a long time to me, a woman's voice behind the door asked me to identify myself. I sheepishly admitted that I was a lost American who was trying to find my way to a boot store. The voice replied that there were no stores in that neighborhood. She seemed to think that I might be using a ploy to gain entrance into her house.

I tried again. "I am a Jewish woman who came here for a friend's wedding. I was staying in Cote St. Luc, and got bad directions to get to a store. I'm hopelessly lost. Could you please tell me how I can get a cab back to the shopping area?" I pleaded. There was silence. I tried once more. "Don't open the door for me. You don't know who I am. But could you please call a taxi to take me to the underground mall?"

Still, no answer. Yet I heard the unmistakable sounds of releasing chains and unbolting locks, and the door slowly opened a few moments later. A short woman in her sixties, with reddish-brown hair swept up in a bun, stood before me. She was at least a head shorter than me, plump, and wore a shapeless black dress with open-toed shoes. She sized me up very quickly and bid me to come in. "My, my," she exclaimed, "it's freezing out there. Come in, come in." With a wave of her hand, she ushered me into her modest living room. "Can I get you a cup of tea?"

"No, thanks," I declined, "but thank you for letting me come in. I'm sure it must be a little worrisome having a stranger come to your door."

"Yes, it was," she admitted, "because I live alone. You looked innocent enough, though. What are you doing in this neighborhood?" she inquired.

"I really don't know myself. I can't imagine how I ended up here. By the way, how far away is the address on this piece of paper?" I asked.

The lady studied the paper carefully and replied, "That's on the other side of town. It will take you half an hour to get there at this time of day."

"In that case, I guess that I'll just forget about shopping and get a cab back to my hostess' house where I'll be staying for the weekend. Can you help me order a cab from here?" I wondered.

"I'll be happy to," the lady replied, "only it will take them about twenty minutes to get here. Make yourself comfortable in the meantime." My first order of business was to take off my coat and enjoy the warmth emanating from the radiator. As the woman called the taxi, I wondered why in the world I had ended up so far from my destination. I was not pleased about spending the rest of the weekend without a warm pair of boots. And I was very annoyed at having wasted the day going absolutely nowhere. I was soon to find out that Someone had a more important plan for me than buying a pair of boots.

The woman sat back against her faded green couch and reassured me that the taxi would be here soon. In the meantime, she was a very gracious hostess and asked me where I was from.

"Well, I'm originally from Baltimore, but I've lived in New York for the past few years," I replied.

"Are you religious?" she inquired.

I wondered if there were something about my appearance that broadcast that I was. "Yes," I acknowledged, "why do you ask?"

"If you're religious, and you're from Baltimore, then you'll appreciate the story that I'm going to tell you. I'm not religious, but my son is. He became religious when he was 15 years old. I was happy for him. He wanted to go to a religious school and decided that the best place for him would be at Ner Israel yeshiva in Baltimore. When he came home for the summer, I was not feeling so well. Before he went back to school, he insisted that I see a doctor. I told him that I didn't think I needed to, but that if it would make him happy, I would go.

"So, he came with me to see my doctor. The doctor did some tests on me and told me that everything was fine. He then told my son to go into his office and he spoke with my son for a few minutes. I didn't know it at the time, but he told my son that I had a tumor the size of a grapefruit in my stomach. My son was stunned, and didn't know what to say. The doctor told him that I couldn't be expected to live for more than three months, and that there was nothing medical that anyone could do to help me.

"My son didn't say a word to me about that conversation. He went back to school a few days later and told someone there what happened to me. That friend told the head of the yeshiva. The head of the yeshiva announced that all of the boys and men in the school would pray for me at every prayer service, three times a day.

"My son came home for winter break three months later and insisted that I see the doctor. I didn't know why he wanted me to go since I felt fine, but he wouldn't stop bothering me about it. I wanted him to be happy, so I finally went. The doctor did some tests and told me that I was fine. Then he called my son in the room with me and asked if I had done anything out of the ordinary since I saw him last. I said, "No."

"The doctor then explained that the grapefruit-sized, lethal tumor that he had seen three months earlier had completely vanished without a trace. He had no explanation for it. My son did, and he told both of us what happened.

"That was eight years ago," the woman explained. "I've been in fine health ever since. I'm not a religious person, but isn't the power of prayer amazing? It saved my life."

Now I understood why I had ended up in this woman's living room instead of in a shoe store. I had prayed for so many things for years and it had seemed that many of my prayers had gone unanswered. I knew that prayer could result in the One Above changing people's lives, but it had been a long time since it happened for me. My prayers had become so lackluster that even though I prayed twice a day, I usually thought about all kinds of matters that had nothing to do with the words of prayer that I uttered. When I thanked God that my body functioned, I didn't feel grateful. While I asked the Almighty to give me health, or financial success, or wisdom, I might be concentrating on what I would eat for breakfast while I gave lip service to the words that I recited. As I requested that my Creator hear my prayers, I was often so distracted that I was mentally focused on what I would do at work that day. It seemed I had stopped viewing prayer as something to take seriously.

This woman's son, and those who prayed for her in the yeshiva, truly believed in the power of prayer. They believed that if God created the world and runs it, He can surely, and often does, intervene in the lives of His creations. Prayer can create a spiritual conduit for this to happen. We have to pray seriously, though, if we want prayer to be effective. If we pray with sincerity, there is no such thing as an unanswered prayer. We may not always get the answers that we want, but we will always be heard and be answered.

That blustery day in Montreal a divine Hand guided me to an unintended destination because there was a message that I needed to hear. The encounter with this woman was a catalyst for me to realize that my prayers simply weren't what they could be. <u>With prayer, we can change the world. When we don't change the world, sincere prayers are never wasted if we use them to change ourselves and foster a closer relationship with the One to whom we pray.</u>

I now know, with the passage of time, that many of my prayers were answered. I simply hadn't gotten the answers that I had wanted to hear at the time that I prayed. <u>When we are equally ready to hear a "No" from our loving Heavenly Parent as a "Yes" because we value the relationship and any communication that we receive, our prayers can take us to a different dimension.</u> The prayers of the boys in the yeshiva undoubtedly took them to Heaven. The woman I met was the beneficiary of prayers that brought Heaven down to earth.

(Message edited by Yaakov on June 08, 2005)

[godchild (godchild)]

Yaakov, I love this story as it affirms what I believe; that answered prayers are powerful evidence of our gracious God. Even the medical field is realizing this and many colleges are now including spirituality in their curriculum for medical students.

[yaakov (yaakov)]

A mother's care for her child is only a microscopic shard of the grandeur of God's care for His creation. Anyone who looks squarely at the world around him can see this loving care everywhere. God didn't just create the birds, bugs, fish and animals. He embedded in nature a food for each species, a habitat for each to live in, and the instincts to enable them to access their survival needs. Of the millions of life-forms that comprise the earth, not one is without its source of sustenance. And these gifts are maintained on an ongoing basis each day.

Man is no exception to this outpouring of God's loving care. The right combinations of oxygen and hydrogen for breathing and drinking, the intelligence to farm, invent, form families and societies, the amazing intricacies of our physical selves and the inspiring awareness of our spiritual selves are all eloquent testimonies of God's love for us.

Clearly, He is a Giver. All He is looking for from us is a little cry, a little peep from his children to express to Him that they are in need of something. Like a mother who hears her child's cry, His inherent quality of compassion is automatically activated by even a quiet plea. God desires our prayers. But it's not because he needs them in order to understand what we are lacking. He is, after all, omniscient. He awaits our cry because it is so necessary for us -- so good and uplifting for us -- to have the experience of turning to Him.

God cares for each individual. A verse in the book of Daniel explains that our ability to request things from God doesn't come as a reward for our good behavior, but rather as a simple expression of God's goodness: "For not because of our righteousness do we pour out our supplications before You, but because of Your great compassion."

We don't need to be perfect, or even close to it, to call out to God in prayer. We just have to reach for the lifeline He is always extending to us and grab on, confident that at the other end is the Source of everything we could ever need.

Adapted from Praying With Fire (ArtScroll) by Rabbi Heshy Kleinman at www.aish.com (http://www.aish.com)

[bettle (bettle)]

Hmm..

Islam the three outcomes of dua are...

1. God will answer your prayer
2. God will not answer your prayer b/c it would have lead to something that is not good for you in the long run , and will instead protect you from this pain.
3. God will save your prayer for the next life.