“Because He turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live.” Psalm 116:2
We pray for months or years with a pressing concern. We hope God hears our prayers but wonder why our prayers aren’t answered. On the other hand, a prayer can become so automatic that we don’t realize it has been answered, perhaps in a way we didn’t expect. We may receive an unexpected answer to prayer and forget to give thanks to God for responding to our request. You may view the subject of prayer with questions, yet Old Testament prophets and Jesus gave us guidance for praying to God. Let's look into what the Bible says about prayer and whether repeatedly praying for the same thing ever becomes a sin.
An often-quoted Bible verse is “Pray without ceasing,” found in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. This verse has been interpreted a few different ways. Should our prayers be like exhaled breaths? Does this verse—an exhortation from the apostle Paul to new Christians in Thessalonia—advise them and us to pray several times a day? Should we then pray before meals and bedtime or with every movement throughout our day?
Digging deeper into scripture, new Christians in the book of Acts are described as being “constantly in prayer” (Acts 1:14). Prayer was these followers’ lifeline to Jesus and God, for they had never seen or heard Jesus when He was alive. The new converts clung to the promises Paul shared with them and spoke directly to God in communal prayers.
Prayer connected new Christians to a God who would be their friend, redeemer, and brother in the first century, a time when the Roman Empire was hostile toward Christians. To encourage the Philippians, Paul wrote in his letter to them, “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7). These words may teach us as well to bring ”everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving" to God.
Similar advice is found in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Paul wrote, “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people” (Ephesians 6:18). Paul kept his friends, with whom he had shared Christ’s message of love and salvation, on his heart and in his own prayers.
Paul said to his fellow converts to Christianity in 1 John 5:14-15, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.” God hears our prayers, but sometimes he doesn’t answer with immediate results.
Often, from our human perspective, we may think a prayer has gone unanswered when, in reality, God has heard our prayer and will answer it in his good timing.
In the book of Job, the title character endures losing his children, his livestock, and his health, but remains faithful to God and continues to “lay my cause before him." One of Job's friends says, “Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward. But if I were you, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before him. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted” (Job 5:8-9). Though answers come slowly when Job falls into difficult times, he does not lose faith that God hears his prayers to have his good life restored. As scripture says, “Throughout all of his trials, Job did not sin by what he said” (Job 2:11).
In contrast to Job’s strong faith, his wife grows impatient with the suffering of her husband and herself. Their run of disasters prompts Job’s wife to advise Job to give up on God answering his prayers. She says, “Do you remain firm in your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9-10).
Like Job’s wife, many Jews exiled in Babylon lost faith in God during their 70 years in captivity. Though the prophet Jeremiah proclaimed to them, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’” declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jeremiah 29:11), many of the Israelites assimilated into Babylonian culture and worshipped their false gods. They were unfaithful to the God of Abraham, yet God still restored and preserved His people in due time.
Like Job's wife, it is difficult for us today to stay faithful when God doesn’t answer our prayers. We pray for healing or restoration of a relationship, and it doesn’t happen. We pray for financial gain in a job promotion and stay in the same work position for years. People may respond to unanswered prayers by falling out of faith, like Job’s wife and the floundering Israelites in Babylon. People in all of history may wonder if their own lack of faith causes prayers to go unanswered.
A contemporary Christian whose prayers are unanswered may find solace in a sinful addiction or inappropriate relationships. A frustrated, praying person may sink into despair, as did the Psalmist when he wrote in Psalm 22:1-2: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, so far from my words of groaning? I cry out by day, O my God, but You do not answer, and by night, but I have no rest.” This lament of David reveals how our expectations are not always God’s will. We may be baffled by the mystery of God’s timing and grow impatient. This can lead to asserting our own will in a sinful manner.
Today we receive instant gratification in getting information from computers, sending messages to each other via texts, and streaming television programs. Bible history, however, reminds us that God’s people held on to their faith for extraordinarily long periods of time. They lived with great patience and faith before receiving answers to their prayers.
For example, after Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they spent 40 years in the desert before they reached the Promised Land. Almost five hundred years after leaving Egypt, Solomon oversaw the building of the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem (I Kings 6:1). Jesus came 490 years after the temple was built, which was predicted by Old Testament prophets (Daniel 9). Jacob worked for fourteen years to earn Rachel as his wife (Genesis 29:18-30).
We can learn from these Old Testament examples that God may expect us to wait for answers to our prayers with faith and patience for what seems a long time.
In His actions and words, Jesus set an example of how to pray. He often went away by himself and prayed on the mountainside (Luke 6:12; Matthew 14:23, Mark 6:46). He was persistent in his appeals to His Father because Jesus depended on God for guidance in His ministry. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed the cup of crucifixion would pass from Him but offered to do God’s will (Matthew 26:42). From Jesus, we learn that prayer is a necessary, two-way conversation with God.
When his disciples asked Jesus how to pray, He taught them what we call The Lord’s Prayer. This prayer outlines what is important to pray for: honoring God, forgiving others, receiving enough food, and that “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Luke 11:1-4). The Lord’s Prayer has since been repeated in many church worship services as the basis for speaking to God.
Jesus also advised His disciples not to pray like “the hypocrites . . . standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full” (Matthew 6:5). Instead, Jesus said, pray privately, as He did.
As for the content of prayers, Jesus said in Matthew 5:44, “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.” This advice on prayer goes against human nature, the desire to protect ourselves. It is again God’s will in contrast to our own wishes.
Many women in the bible display “long-suffering,” praying with patience. Hannah, one of the barren women of the Old Testament, persisted in her prayers for a child: “In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. And she made a vow, saying, “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, . . . she kept on praying to the Lord . . . “(1 Samuel 1:10-11). Hannah’s prayers were answered when she gave birth to Samuel, who became a judge, prophet, and military leader, and appointed the first kings of Israel.
The prophetess Anna was another woman persistent in her prayers. She fasted and prayed in the temple for years, asking God to let her meet Jesus before she died. Her prayers were answered when baby Jesus arrived at the temple with his parents: “Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38). This elderly woman trusted God would answer her persistent prayers to meet the promised Messiah, even though she didn't see an answer to her prayer until she was old.
Faith and patience go hand in hand with our prayers. As it says in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart: yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Our sense of eternity is keen when we wait for an answer to a heartfelt prayer. Time is long in a troubled heart and soul, but we can persist in praying and receive answers, as those in the Bible did.
The Bible’s definition of faith speaks to the need for patience while waiting for an answer to prayer: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). In this chapter of Hebrews, we learn that many faithful believers were patient and receptive to God’s plan: “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:39-40). Again, it is a matter of our will versus God’s plan when He answers prayers differently from what we expect.
A beautiful verse about being receptive to prayer is Psalm 42:8: “By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.” With an attitude of trusting God and listening to God’s voice, we can know we are held in God’s hands, and that He will answer our prayers in His way. Keep praying.
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