Does God Truly Answer Prayers?

Time after time I get the opportunity to get reacquainted with prayer.  I say “reacquainted” not because I have fallen away from prayer, but because circumstances force me to learn something new about prayer and my faith in God.  

First off, let me share that I cannot remember a time when I did not believe that prayer was important.  As a child, my parents and the church reinforced this concept importance through repetition and dogma.  I admit it was something I did because I was told to, not because I fully understood it, nor did I grasp the true value of what I was learning.  Prayer had a form and structure to it.  I was taught to genuflect, close my eyes, and hold my hands together as a sign of respect and worship to my God.  It was training and introduction to something for which I am still thankful.

That said, prayer has become second nature to me.  Not in the same way I learned as a child, but now as a way to talk with my maker.  I spend as much time listening as I do asking Him for help or comfort.  As a child I was taught that God answers all of our prayers, sometimes with a “yes”, sometime with a “no”, sometimes with a “later”; I no longer think it is that simple.  Prayer is a way to converse directly with our Father, and as with any good father, he asks us to think about what we are praying.  He answers us, true, if we are willing to listen, but sometimes I think the answer might be another question. 

I now have faith that God answers our true prayers in a way that will always be best for us even though that might not seem so at the time.  And sometimes we need to listen to better understand what our prayers should be.   Should we pray that a surgery be successful or pray that God guides the surgeon to do their best and to give us strength do deal with any outcome?  Should we pray for wealth or that He provide us the means to care for our family and ourselves? 

Recently, a situation arose in my family that got me to praying again.  My wife was hospitalized with a condition that we did not understand, neither did the doctors.  My prayers were for her health, of course, but for some reason, I felt my prayers needed to change.  I needed to ask God to calm our fears – He did.