What to do when you feel like your prayers aren’t being answered:

01.21.2021

Check Your Heart!

Are you living righteously? Ask God to search you heart and expose sin, so that you can repent. Unrighteousness causes our prayers to be ineffective.

“Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.”

James 5:16-18

“The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.”

Proverb 15:29 (NIV)

Check Your Desires!

Are you praying for the will of God or against it? Have you allowed the Lord to change your desires to match His desires?

“Jesus gave them this answer: "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” John 5:19

“But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

Romans 8: 25-27

If you don’t know the will of God, start by praying in tongues or strictly declaring the Word of God. Sometimes we create resistance to what God is doing because we are praying against the very thing that God wants to use to grow us the most.

Do you feel like you’re striving to accomplish something when you pray or do you feel like you’re simply casting something into the hands of God?

Check Your Faith!

Do you really believe that God is good and will come through?

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

Matthew 20:21

If you’re struggling to belief, start by praying the scripture found in Mark 9:25, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (NKJV). The more we encounter the goodness of God, the easier it is to believe He is working things for our good even if we don’t see it. (Romans 8:28)

Check your authority!

Are you actually praying about it? A lot of times we say we’re praying about something, but truly we haven’t spent more than a thought or two on it. We act like we want God’s intervention when we talk to others, but we don’t actually spend time in private contending for change. Matthew 28:18-20 says, “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” If we want to walk in authority, we must simply enter deeper into our relationship with Christ. Furthermore, we don’t have to beg God to do something that He wants to do, we simply have to give Him permission to intervene in His way by handing Him our portion of control.

“I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.”

Psalm 37:25 (ESV)

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Hebrews 4:14-16 (NIV)

Check Your Agreement!

Have you stood in agreement with other believers of like faith?

“I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.”

1 Corinthians 1:10 (NIV)

“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Matthew 18:19-20 (NIV)

Check Your Endurance!

Are you praying through until the breakthrough comes? How long are you willing to contend for it? Will you trust God’s timing?

“Meanwhile, brothers and sisters, we must be patient and filled with expectation as we wait for the appearing of the Lord. Think about the farmer who has to patiently wait for the earth’s harvest as it ripens because of the early and latter rains. So you also keep your hopes high and be patient, for the presence of the Lord is drawing closer.”

James 5: 7-8 (TPT)

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”

Romans 12:12 (NIV)

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

2 Peter 3:9 (NIV)