WHY DIDN’T GOD ANSWER OUR PRAYERS?

Q&A SESSION WITH PASTOR CHRIS OYAKHILOME.

QUESTION – Joyce (Australia): Dear Pastor Chris, my sister was diagnosed with a hole in her heart. Both she and I prayed, and believed God for a miracle and we did everything we knew to do, but she died. I’m so disappointed with God. My faith is totally shaken, and I’m at my lowest point since she passed on. I’m not able to pray any more. Why did God not answer our prayers?

ANSWER: I wish you could see the heart of God at this moment! It will be painful for you that your sister died but two things she said which she should also consider, she said we did all we knew we could, she didn’t say we did everything we were supposed to do, according to the word of God. She did what she knew to do. There is always God’s Word for every situation, and we should also know that God is always ready to answer our prayers; the problem is always on the receiving hand.

She said why did God not answer her prayers, who said he did not answer? Very, very important, to Joyce and maybe several others who might be thinking like this. She says she and her sister prayed for her sister to be healed, and then her sister died and she says I’m so disappointed with God, my faith is totally shaken. She says we did everything we knew to do but she died. You did everything you knew to do, what if everything you need to do wasn’t enough, what if you don’t know enough, that’s why we teach the word of God, so people can know more in the Word of God, so that when the day of crisis comes, you will know what to do.

A lot of people just don’t know what to do when trouble strikes and when they are at that point in their life, they are trying to put a lot of things together, and that information just wasn’t there, and if you didn’t have the knowledge, you are going to have problems. I’m not sure you did what you knew, but what you knew of yourself was not enough. I will tell you why, first, from what you wrote, you didn’t believe because, you were disappointed at God, and this God never fails. How could you think that he failed? He never fails, and again, does death end? Do you realize one time somebody was sick, and his sister sent message to Jesus? Lazarus it was, the sister sent a message to Jesus and she said, hey, your friend was sick, and Jesus didn’t go. But Jesus said something to them, he said it wasn’t onto death. In other words, he is not going to die. So that was a word of faith that Jesus spoke. The trouble was, the man died after Jesus said he wasn’t going to die.

Now you had an option to think Jesus was fake because the man died, Jesus said that he wasn’t going to die. So what are we going to do; oh! Jesus you lied. Jesus came there four days after Lazarus died. Lazarus was already buried and Jesus came and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said, “Master you want to go there? By this time, he stinks. Decomposition is set in, it’s four days.” Then Jesus said, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” And they followed him there, Jesus stood coming to the entrance of that cave, and he called that dead man by name, “Lazarus come out!“ The bible declares that he that was dead came forth, still bound with grave clothes, hopping, coming out, as soon as he showed up, Jesus said loose him and let him go.

I’m thinking about you Joyce, if you had the faith you thought you had, your faith shouldn’t have ended with death. Faith never ends with death. We give up too soon, a lot of times we give up, maybe the circumstances. Jesus said, he asked a question, Luke18:8, “when the son of man comes shall he find faith in the earth?” Because a lot of things will be going on and sometimes you don’t even have the opportunity to minister to that one, sometimes when someone is pronounced dead, the authorities take the body away and you just can’t do more. Because a lot of things have happened that work against your faith, does not mean it is about God, it’s what we allow. Think about it, it’s what we allow. Sometimes the family members don’t even let you do more. Jesus went to the grave, to where this man was buried four days. How many people let you do more, once that person has been pronounced dead? You may have not been allowed to do more even if you had more things. So think about it, God didn’t disappoint you, God was waiting for you, and he gave you faith. He says cast out demons, heal the sick, he says raise the dead, he told you. So why do we give up? We give up because we couldn’t do it, we want God do it in our time. We think it’s based on God’s time, no, our time is important and it’s our faith that determines the time.

If your faith is weak then it will take a longer time. If your faith is small, it will take a longer time because the Bible says when the edge of a machete is blunt, you must apply more force. Something you should have cut with one swipe, when the faith is sharp, it goes and it cuts once. But when your faith is blunt, you try to cut two, three or four times because it’s blunt; that’s it. If it is working, once is enough but if it is not working you have to cut many times. So if your faith is working, a short time is enough, if it’s not working it takes a long time.

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