The Wrong Answer to Unanswered Prayer

1 Samuel 28:6
“And when Saul enquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.”

Saul found himself in a terrible position in life. He had prayed, but the LORD “answered him not.” Saul knew why the LORD didn’t answer him, but instead of doing what he should do to get God to answer him again, he chose to continue to add to his rebellion. Instead of getting right with the LORD, he chose to go to a woman with a familiar spirit. Saul came up with the wrong answer to his unanswered prayers. One might think that God would not answer him because He was about to take him to Heaven, but I don’t believe that is true. God continued to talk to Moses, even to the point of Moses’ death. So, to say that God didn’t answer his prayers because of his impending death would be wrong. The reason God didn’t answer Saul’s prayer is because he continued to have the wrong answer for every spiritual disaster in his life.

Have you ever been there when it seemed like God wouldn’t answer your prayer? There could be nothing worse than going to the prayer closet and it seeming as though your prayers are hitting an iron ceiling. My friend, adding to your sin because God is not answering your prayers is the wrong answer. Quitting church and running towards the world is the wrong answer to unanswered prayers. It will never help you to draw towards the world in an attempt to get your prayers answered. When your prayer life seems to be cold and failing, there are several right things you should do to get your prayers answered again.

First, examine your life for sin. The biggest reason Saul’s prayers were not being answered is because he had sin in his life that he refused to deal with. You can’t expect God to answer your prayers when you refuse to deal with the sin that God has already shown you to be the problem. You can blame God for not answering your prayers, but when you know that you have sin in your life that you refuse to repent of, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Second, never stop praying. One of the greatest things prayer warriors do when their prayers are not answered is to continue praying. Just because your prayers seem to be unanswered doesn’t mean you should stop praying for them. It could be that God wants to see how bad you truly want an answer to prayer before He chooses to answer it. It was the neighbor who continued knocking on the door at midnight that finally got his friend to give him bread. The best answer to the unanswered prayer is to continue to pray.

Third, don’t base God’s hearing of your prayer on your feelings. Saul thought that God hadn’t heard his prayer, but evidently God had heard his prayer because He recorded it in the Scriptures. One of the greatest mistakes that believers make about prayer time is basing how effective the prayer time was on their feelings. My friend, there are going to be times when you pray that you will feel that your prayer time is worthless; however, you must always remember that God always hears your prayer. Just because God doesn’t choose to answer your prayer doesn’t mean that He hasn’t heard your prayer. God is not required to answer your prayers on your timeline. You would do yourself a big favor to let God be God and let Him answer your prayers when He knows it is best to answer them.