Why do I not get quick answers in prayer?

My apologies everyone. It has been a busy few weeks. I’ve been adjusting my schedule to help give devotionals daily to my youth group and then as well getting used to this new world that has been changed by this coronavirus. So thank you if you are reading this and as I take my youth group through the book of John, I will do small devotionals here with them.

So as we are going through this new time of our lives changing our schedules and everything that we do, I imagine that there are a ton of prayer requests going up to God. Some for the will of God while others for our own desires.

With all of these prayers that we are giving to God, we may not be getting a response or a response that we expect to have from God. There are obviously plenty of reasons why God may not be responding to our requests as soon as we like. This won’t be over all of them but rather one reason in particular and that is to give Glory to God or for us to depend on him more.

“Now a man was sick, Lazarus, from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. So the sisters sent a message to Him: “Lord, the one You love is sick.” When Jesus heard it, He said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. So when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. Then after that, He said to the disciples, “Let’s go to Judea again.” “Rabbi,” the disciples told Him, “just now the Jews tried to stone You, and You’re going there again?” 9 “Aren’t there 12 hours in a day?” Jesus answered. “If anyone walks during the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 If anyone walks during the night, he does stumble, because the light is not in him.” He said this, and then He told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I’m on My way to wake him up.” Then the disciples said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.” Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought He was speaking about natural sleep. So Jesus then told them plainly, “Lazarus has died. 15 I’m glad for you that I wasn’t there so that you may believe. But let’s go to him.”

John 11:1-15

Hcsb Bible

As we read this passage, Jesus has just been threatened with his life in the previous chapter and was told that one of his good friends was dying and that Mary and Martha were asking(praying) for Jesus to come quickly. What was Jesus’s response? It was for him to stay put in the area where he was.

Now some might have seen this as being cruel or hateful since they are just telling him that his friend was sick. Some may say that if he knew about someone then he should have done something immediately if he was truly loving. Or that you could try and say that Jesus is being arrogant and dismissive of his friend.

The thing is, you could make both arguments against God today. He knows the suffering that we experience in this world. He allows these things to happen but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love us. In a few verses later, the Bible says that he loves them. Also, in that same verse it comes across as though he decides to stay in his area and not go to his friend BECAUSE he loves them.

This doesn’t make sense in our minds but it’s what the Bible says. A couple verses later Jesus says that this event happens for them to see the Glory of God and to know him better.

We can say the same thing for our lives sometimes. Sometimes not all the time obviously because God has his reasons for everything that happens. So you might be praying to God to get you out of a terrible situation or to give you knowledge that you currently don’t have and both of them could be given to you and would be good but he might answer because he loves you.

Later on in the chapter, Jesus raises up Lazarus and shows his power over death to his friends and the crowd and showing that he’s God. This gave Mary, Martha and Lazarus a greater insight into who Jesus is. They knew him better and therefore were closer to him because of the experience that they had.

So depending on the situation or request that you have for God, he may not answer or do as you ask immediately and the reason might be that he wants you to experience the situation that you’re in so his glory can be shown to you or for you to grow closer to him. Now this isn’t always the case but it can be for some while others it’s because the request is against his will or he has another reason.

In any situation, continue praying. Pray without ceasing as said in 1Thessalonians 5:16-18. You may find out the reason why he hasn’t responded yet.

If anyone has any questions, comments or disagreements, comment below or message me. I hope y’all are having a great time and are growing closer to God during this time of great change.