#DailyDevotion Not Getting Your Prayers Answered?

James 4: You do not have, because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 7Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Well you’ve been wondering why you don’t have stuff or people in your life you want? You’ve been wondering why nothing seems to be going your way and everything seems to be going wrong? Well there might be an answer to that—you haven’t prayed about it. You don’t have because you didn’t ask. Much like the disciples when they could not cast out a demon, Jesus told them this kind can only be cast out by prayer.

Well perhaps you did pray and you have seen no results, what then? James says perhaps because you want to spend what you get on your passions. In other words you’ve been praying selfish, self-centered prayers. Your prayers are unfulfilled because they are not according to God’s revealed will. When we pray selfish prayers we are making ourselves friends with the world and an enemy of God. We may not want to admit to ourselves or to God that our prayers have been purely selfish, but oftentimes they are.

But sometimes we have asked and not for selfish things and our prayers are still not answered. Here then maybe it just isn’t accord to God’s will. God has a plan. We must remember Paul’s words, “God works out everything for good, for those who love him who have been called according to his purpose.” What we are asking for may not fit into God’s overall plan but whatever relief we are looking for God will use it for good. Here the rest of James’ words come into play. “But he gives more grace.” God will give us the grace to deal with what is going on that we are praying about. We must submit our wills to God and humble ourselves under his will. Humble yourself in knowing the Lord our God knows what is best.

So we still draw near to God and humbly present our request to him and God will draw near to you. His presence is all that we need sometimes. We need to know he is with us and for us when the devil has been afflicting us. When we draw near to God humbly offering our petitions and in all humility submitting ourselves to his divine good will, the devil will flee from us and at least for the time we won’t have his continual accusations in our ear, weighing down our hearts. The troubles may still persist but we know our Father in heaven is working on it to our good and to his glory.

Heavenly Father, grant us faith to ask, the Spirit to know your will, and give us humble and contrite hearts that may submit to your will trusting in your promises. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.