The Gift of Answered Prayer

There is so much treasure to be found in answered prayer. The Bible instructs us to pray with patience, with persistence, with shameless audacity, with confidence, and more. And yet at times doing so presents our relationship with our heavenly Father as being purely transactional. 

As children of God we have an inheritance, but if we act like these answered prayers are our birth-right, we are at risk of forgetting that when God works in our lives, he does so without the need for recompense – the response is freely given. If we see every answered prayer as a gratuity from heaven rather than a legal right of inheritance, our response to that answered prayer should be very different.

There are many ways that we can often miss the full benefits of an answered prayer. First, there is the overlooked gift. How many times have we prayed for something and then forgotten what we have prayed for? There is no ‘wow’ moment; it’s like God is standing before us with a gift, and we take the benefit but just keep walking. No attention to The Giver and the opportunity to learn more about him unconsciously missed. 

Second, there is the short-term gift. We hold the gift with wonder, we thank God for answering, for a few days maybe we are floating on the clouds elevated by the knowledge of his love. But then, after a while, the storms of life close in once more, and the gift is no longer remembered. Perhaps subconsciously we view it as a short-term gift, great for the moment but, beyond that, having no lifespan – and in doing so we fail to explore the hidden riches that lie within that miracle. 

Then there is the gift refused when we don’t like the answer and so instead of accepting it as God’s wisdom, we harbor bitterness against God for what he is giving to us.  

Every answered prayer is a gift, packed with the DNA of God and sealed with his fingerprint. It continues, if remembered, to tell of the intricacies of who God is, to reveal his nature, and to declare to the listener what he is like. Testimonies don’t need to be outstandingly miraculous to be a spiritual gift; if the story is of an answered prayer, it is by definition a Holy Spirit eternal moment, uniquely crafted for us to treasure.

Ideas for Reflection 

1. Take one of the answered prayers or moments when God touched your life and begin to meditate on it. 

2. Get a notebook and write down the story in full.  Capture the context and all the detail you can. Write down what you have learned about God from this story and date stamp it.  

3. As you repeatedly come back to this story over the years, you will learn more about him, so add these revelations and date them too and see your understanding of God grow.