Does God really answer our prayers or do we only think he does?

One of the things I have come to notice during my journey back to the Catholic faith is how God continues to answer my prayers. I have to admit I was always pretty sceptical about the whole idea of God actually doing that, but as you have seen in past posts, He has and continues to do so. I am sure this isn’t just a Catholic thing, but rather one which transcends all believers.

After the first few times, I had to wonder if the things that happened, the incidents I think have been as a result of answered prayers, if these were all some kind of coincidences, or even if I had been “wishing” my prayers be answered, and therefore making them answered. But too many of these things have happened now for this to be true. I struggled with this for a long time, and here is what I have come up with.

If I were indeed “wishing” for my prayers to be answered, taking things that have happened and conforming them into answers, would that not mean that I would only have good answers, that no bad would happen, that only answers which conformed to my preconceived ideas would be gotten? Pretty deep huh?

For example, I wrote a post a while back, “Father Knows Best” talking about an answered prayer dealing with my grandson, daughter and ex-son-in-law. I had prayed, asking God to do what was best and even though he didn’t do what I would have liked. Since it wasn’t the answer I wanted, wouldn’t it make sense for me to not consider my prayer answered? So what is my point?

God doesn’t always answer our prayers the way we want him to. I would assume this is one of the reasons many people turn away from God. They pray, but “nothing” happens, at least not what they want. They figure God isn’t listening, he isn’t giving them what they want, therefore he mustn’t exist and they leave whatever faith they may be in as well as their belief in God.

God doesn’t always do what we think is best, He does what He knows is best. We should never forget that. There will be times when we don’t like what God is telling us, where He is guiding us, but we still need to follow. The bigger problem is knowing when God is talking to us and what it is He is trying to say. We have to take the time to look, listen and feel to be able to discern the answers.

God always has a reason for what He does, we may not always like the reason or even know the reason, but it is there and it is best. And yes, God has answered yet another one of my prayers, giving me an answer to a question I have had. But you’ll have to wait for another post to hear about that. Let’s just say it has to do with why God brought someone special into my life.