Have you ever prayed and heard nothing in response? Have you asked for guidance and just been met with silence? Have you asked for change and seen no difference? I have. It can be a really frustrating thing to feel as though your prayers are wasted and not know why.
There is no one way to pray, and although many books have been written on prayer there isn’t exactly a step by step guide on how to pray successfully every time (depending on how you define success). Sometimes it can feel as if you are doing it wrong because nothing is happening. Sometimes a voice of doubt enters – maybe God’s not really listening!
There are times when I look around and I just want to shout at God – why has he let things turn out this way, why isn’t he doing something?! There are times when I feel like I’ve reached breaking point and call out to God to do something, anything. There are times I’m at a crossroads with an important decision and I ask if God would mind possibly telling me which path I should take and to do so in a very obvious way like a letter through the door or writing on the wall. These are the moments my faith is tested. Do I really trust God? Do I trust him even when I can’t see his hand at work, even when I can’t hear his reply or even feel his presence? Do I still trust God when I can’t make sense of what I see?
Those times when I’ve shouted I haven’t always seen change in the timescale I’ve demanded or in the way I’d imagined. Those times I felt at breaking point I somehow found the ability to keep going. Those times when I asked for guidance I never got a letter so I made a decision and life went on. I don’t know that God heard my prayers and if he did I don’t necessarily understand his response (or lack of). And yes, there are times when I have prayed out of desperation or frustration “can you actually hear me, because I can’t hear you!”
Sometimes it takes courage to keep trusting, to keep persevering in prayer. I’ve written about this before and I will probably write about it again because it’s important. Hope is choosing to believe through good and bad. Hope requires courage and trust. But once you have hope, it’s one of the strongest forces and will keep you praying even when it seems like God doesn’t hear you. Because you choose to believe he does hear and trust he has a plan you can’t see from where you are.
Choose hope. Keep praying.
The Reason for my Hope Blog 