Pray Because Your Father Always Hears You

Here’s a third reason to pray: because our Father always hears us.

Jesus promised: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7). No exceptions. God has an “open door” policy with the universe. Billions of people pray in thousands of languages, all at the same time, and God hears each one. You included.

Jesus followed his promise with a parable (vs. 9–11). Stones along the Sea of Galilee were small limestone balls, in appearance much like the bread of the day. Fish-like snakes grew in the Sea; they were without scales and thus forbidden to the Jews as food (Leviticus 11:12).

Now, if you were a father in those days and your hungry child asked for bread, would you trick him with a stone? If he asked for a fish, would you give him a snake? 

Of course not. And compared to God, we are “evil.” Our perfect Father who is love always hears us. 

This is the promise of God.

The difference between hearing and answering

However, “hearing” and “answering” may not be the same thing. 

We often say that God hasn’t heard our prayers if he has not yet granted our request in the way we asked it. But a father hears the child’s request which he must refuse just as he hears the request he can grant.

Here’s a one-sentence theology of prayer: when we pray, God always gives us what we ask for or something better. 

He always hears us and always grants our request in the way that is for his glory and our good. He is not capricious, arbitrary, or deaf. He is a Father who is excited every time one of his children calls him. Every time.

The Greeks told a story about Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, who fell in love with Tithonus, a mortal youth. Zeus offered her any gift she might choose for her mortal lover. 

She naturally chose that Tithonus might live forever, but she had forgotten to ask that he might remain forever young. And so Tithonus grew older and older and older and could never die, and the gift became a curse.

Our Father is no Zeus. He loves us so much he watched his Son die in our place, on our cross, for our sins. Do you know anyone who loves you enough to send their child to die for you? 

One did. 

Do you believe God always hears you? Why or why not? 

Either way—pray about it.