"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
The Bible tells all of us Christians to keep praying. In fact, we are told to pray non-stop: morning till night, wherever and whenever, we should keep praying.
But what do we do when our prayers remain unanswered? What do we do when after praying non-stop, we still don't receive any response or answer from the Lord?
My friends, it's time to keep pressing on.
Pressing on
To press on simply means to continue doing something with determination, even if we face challenges or problems along the way. Pressing on towards God in prayer doesn't mean we just keep praying and praying when it seems He is not responding. Maybe we need to do something while we pray.
Here are a few things we should consider doing when our prayers remain unanswered despite our continued praying.
1) Evaluate whether God has already responded with a "no."
There are times when we think God hasn't responded yet, but in reality His silence or denial of our requests is actually the response that He gave. In short, we don't know that He already said "no."
James 4:3 tells us that this is true. "You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures."
Maybe we keep asking God for something He doesn't want to give to us. How can we expect Him to give us something that will violate His character?
2) Evaluate our intentions
In line with point number 1, we should also check our motives and the intentions of our hearts, knowing that God will not give us what we ask if we pray soulish or selfish prayers.
Let's take some time and evaluate the statuses of our hearts. Are we praying something that's not in line with God's will and is only for our own happiness? Are we asking God to do something for us as if we can bend Him to do our will? Are we asking out of a fleshly and sinful desire or longing?
Let us evaluate ourselves.
3) Seek His will even more
Lastly, after doing the first two things mentioned above, we should seek to realign ourselves with God's will, as according to His word.
1 John 5:14-15 tells us,
"Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him."
Friends, let us all learn to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one we call "Lord," and so He is the one who should be followed and obeyed, not us. Let us all submit to Him and do as He says.
