Will God Answer Your Prayer?

For those who know him and rely on him, Jesus seems to be wildly generous in his offer:

"If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you." To "remain" in Him and have His words remain in us means we conduct our lives aware of Him, relying on Him, listening to what He says. Then we are able to ask him whatever we want.

Here is another qualifier:

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: 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 what we asked of Him."

God answers our prayers according to His will (and according to His wisdom, His love for us, His holiness, etc.).

Where we mess up is when we assume we know God's will, because certain things make sense to us. We assume that there is only one right "answer" to a specific prayer, assuming certainly THAT it would be God's will for us. This is where it gets tough. We allow ourselves to live within the limits of our time and the limits of our knowledge. With only limited information about a situation and the implications of future action on that situation we don't see that God's understanding is unlimited. How an event plays out in the course of our life or in history is only something He knows. He may have a purpose far beyond what we could ever imagine.

God is not going to do something simply because we determine that it must be His will. He does it because He determines what it best for our lives.