How to explain to my children when their prayer aren't answered part 2

There are many yes answers but there are also requests to which we can anticipate receiving a definite no from God, as the Bible shows. We'll call these requests "no prayers." For example, the Bible says that God is love and that we're to forgive people who wrong us. Understanding that, we know that if we get really mad at someone and pray that God will punish him or her on our behalf, the answer will be no.

The majority of things that our children talk to God about fall into the same category as the majority of things they talk to us about: they're prayers that might get a yes answer or might get a no answer. We'll call them "maybe prayers." Occasionally the parallel breaks down here, unfortunately, because we're less than perfect as parents. Our children may ask us for something that's actually perfectly reasonable. Thinking just of them, we should give a yes answer, but the answer becomes no because to grant the request would greatly inconvenence us, or perhaps we're just too tired to do the work required of a yes response.

Whenever our children ask God for something reasonable and there's no reason that they shouldn't have it, the answer will be yes. But as in the go-cart example, there are many times that a maybe prayer receives a no answer or a not yet answer from God because he knows the bigger picture: he knows how the answer will affect us, he knows our life schedule, and he knows whether a yes answer to this request would take us in the wrong direction. He knows what's good for us and what isn't, and what's safe and what isn't. God hears and responds to every one of our maybe prayers, but we need to help our children realize that he answers according to his greater knowledge of who we are, where we are, and where we're going. But we can always be sure that his answer is in our best interest.

At some point your children might wonder, If all of this is true, then why pray? Why not just let what's going to happen, happen? The parallel drawn in the previous blog between your children asking you and them asking God will help you and them asking God will help you answer this question. Although your kids can trust you, if they never let you know what they wanted or expressed their interests and preferences, they'd end up missing out on a lot that you'd have been willing to give them if they'd talked to you about it.

Nothing gets by God. He knows what we need and desire, but because he gave us a will and wants a relationship with us in which we express our interests, preferences, and desires, he doesn't automatically do things in our life. The New Testament writer James sums it up by saying, "you don't have what you want, becaus eyou don't ask God" (James 4:2) When it comes to yes prayers and maybe prayers, God wants us to talk to him and ask him for things, and he wants to do the things that we'd like in our life. It's a partnership, a relationship.

That's the way God set it up, and that's the way he made it work. The more we talk to him and spend time getting to know him and letting him know what it is that we want and need, the more he does in our lives.