Why your prayer will not be answered

So my friend’s mom was about to die and we were definitely not going to watch that happen. I do not want to go into details about that disease, but it was one of those diseases that could not be cured. So we got ourselves together and organised a “prayer chain”, and we fasted and we prayed and we got our faith all revved up and charged up and knew without an iota of doubt, even with several 'confirmations' that the Lord would step in and heal her.

She died.

I was there and had to watch with glazed eyes as people munched voraciously on the refreshment served at the wake keeping, reminding me of vultures feeding off carrion and enjoying the delicacy of the dead…

But that was just one of many instances.


I had been called to visit a baby, little fighter a few days old at the time, lying on his back and not really crying. His little fists had been beating the air, with tubes on his face and plasters on the back of his little hands, where our crude medical technology meant his tiny veins were to be cruelly impaled with needles, but he wasn’t crying. He was just surviving. His mother was a mess, like any mother would be. His father tried to be brave; he was a policeman who believed in the prayer of faith and they had called me to the scene and though my heart sank, I had prayed and I had called on the powers of heaven with everything I had on the inside.

He had died the next day, and I had gone into the bathroom at work to weep like a child.

And slowly, I started to wonder why there were sometimes answers to prayers and if this whole thing of God and life and demons and the afterlife was nothing but an elaborate myth. This article is the summary of my conclusion regarding the issue of Faith. Let’s not really beat around the bush because the question at the heart of the matter is “Why is it that prayers are not answered?”.

I can summarise the answer in one line, but it will not suffice, but I will say the answer anyway – and then ATTEMPT to explain. The answer, simply, though not an easy one to grasp is:

It’s not about YOU.

Let me destroy your conception of what Faith is.
Faith is NOT the same as belief. Now, just in case you missed that part, I will say it again for emphasis.
Faith is NOT the same as belief.

You, like me, may have been told that Faith was being able to ask God for what you want, without doubting in your heart. You, like me, would have been given examples of how God had used men, like you and me, to raise up people from the dead because these great “men of Faith” just believed and had acted out on their belief. You would have heard “testimonies” (that bastardised word) of how women had believed they would get married soon, had gotten the clothes of their husbands-to-be, activating their fourth dimension powers – and voila, their husbands had popped out of nowhere and now this women were married.

And you had been told, like me, that if you believed, if you could work up that belief and channel that power to your prayer as you knelt before God, if you could consistently do the ridiculous in your ardent belief, like attempt to walk on water despite your feet sinking in, if you could buy the clothes of the baby you have been trying for for several years, if you could buy the suit for the job that you so desire and crave, if you could reach a point where you threw away your medication, believing in FAITH that God could heal you, the divine would break through into your life, the supernatural would invade your situation and everything would turn around for GOOD!

They meant well, the people who told you this trash that people call FAITH. They meant well, largely, I choose to believe, but in the end, when reality bites, you have to ask yourself why this Faith thing isn’t working. The reason why your FAITH did not work and your prayer was not answered was because you had no FAITH at all, as defined by The Book, The Manual – The BIBLE.

If GOD has not given insight about a situation to you, there is NOTHING to faith.

All you have is passionate ardent belief that is your HOPE – and it is fine to act with the hopes of getting what you want and telling God, your Father, what your desires are. However, Faith ALWAYS produces results BUT the real issue here is that what we WANT may not exactly be what is in “The Plan”. So what the heck is Faith?

Faith is acting based on a KNOWING of God’s intention about something. Basically, there is a plan about a person or situation that God is bringing about and somehow, you have been able to hear or “hear”, as in know SOMEHOW on the inside, what God intends to DO. Praying with that understanding simply aligns with what God plans to DO already

“Faith cometh by hearing the word of God”. If you have not heard, what are you “faithing’’? You see, FAITH allows an individual to latch into something God has created in another dimension that is out of TIME and as God would have it, there is a tangible expression of that reality. Abraham had a son because God TOLD him he would have a son. His faith was based on what he HEARD from God. ALL the heroes of FAITH had a GOD-given conviction about something; it was not just mere belief.

Why should the Bible say that what is not of Faith is SIN? Simply because not to have FAITH means one has HEARD directly or INTERNALLY God’s plan or intent about something – and has decided it cannot happen. Faith is not a feeling to be whipped up.

But, you say, I prayed in alignment with what The Bible says and nothing happened and this is where one has to humbly (and almost ruefully) realise:
It is not about YOU.

God is God-centric and he is really big on HIS plan. Now, accept this, while he really LOVES you, the most important thing in the Universe is not that job or that deal or that spouse or that baby… You cannot take what the Bible has SAID in the past, ASSUME that is what God is saying about you NOW and “CLAIM IT” for yourself. So, just before Paul’s head was taken from his body, he did not start screaming “The Bible says ‘I shall not die but LIVE!”. You cannot decide you will have no home or place to lay your head because you follow The Master who said “Foxes have holes and birds have nests but the Son of man has no place to lay his head”.

And that is why Jesus said and almost pleaded when he said “ABIDE in me”. He was saying, stay with me, understand me, understand what I want to do, understand what the CURRENT instruction is for your life. You WILL die and be dissatisfied if you think knowing the Bible is enough to get you through life. You cannot do anything or LIVE properly or know my current plan for you except you STAY in me, ABIDE in me and HEAR from me, so you can ALIGN with me and my plans for you life as it UNRAVELS.

Stay with me…

ABIDE...