Gospel Q&A: How to Pray to Be Heard by God
Today, and it’s time for Gospel Q&A again. In the past few days, some brothers and sisters wrote to us, saying, “When I encounter difficulties, I often pray to God in order to receive God’s help. But why is it that I can not feel the presence of the Lord after praying and my prayers are not answered by the Lord? This is so distressing to me. I am wondering how to pray to God to be heard by Him?”
In fact, how to pray to be heard by the Lord is critical to whether we can be praised by the Lord. When we pray to the Lord, quite often we think that as long as we say our needs to the Lord, He will definitely answer our prayers and grant our requests. But we never consider whether such a prayer is in line with the Lord’s will. In fact, when praying to the Creator, we need to think about what station we should stand to be sensible. Only when we master the principles of prayer and practice according to them, can our prayers be heard by the Lord.
God’s word says, “You must now ascertain whether the words you use in prayer are sensible. If your prayers are not sensible, no matter if this is due to your foolishness or by design, the Holy Spirit will not work on you. Therefore, when you pray, you must speak sensibly, in a suitable tone.”
“When one comes before God to pray, they must give consideration to how they might do so sensibly, and to how they might adjust their inner state to achieve piety and be capable of submission. Having done so, it is then fine for you to go ahead and pray; you will feel God’s presence.”
God is the Creator and we human beings are merely His creations. When we pray to God, therefore, we must possess a sense of reason and a heart of reverence for God; we should take our proper place as created beings; we should entrust our difficulties to God and then obey God God’s orchestration and arrangements regardless of the results. Only this kind of prayer can be heard by God. If we don’t stand in a proper position in our prayers, if we irrationally make demands of God and ask Him to act according to our own will, (for example, we ask God to prepare a good job for us or heal our sickness…. ), this kind of prayer is making unreasonable demands of God and can’t be heard by God.
Let’s take a look at Job’s story. He knew that his properties were given by God. When his possessions were taken away by robbers, he believed it was God taking them back. Therefore, he could pray in a reasonable way, “And they asked him, What then? Are you Elias? And he said, I am not. Are you that prophet? And he answered, No.” (Job 1:21). He stood firm in his testimony during his trial and humiliated Satan. Job’s such prayer is a sensible prayer and is what we should imitate.
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