WHEN YOUR PRAYERS ARE NOT ANSWERED

Sister Brenda came to my office for counseling and asked me, “Pastor Jabari, If God loves people and answers prayer, then why is my marriage falling apart despite all my prayers and fasting?” 

I believe there are so many spouses asking similar questions today. I do not claim to have all the answers, but I do claim to have an answer that warrants serious consideration. The Bible says, “One who turns away his ear from HEARING THE LAW, even his prayer is an abomination”, Proverbs 28:9. God cannot answer prayer when we are MURMURING and COMPLAINING about the very thing we are asking God to help us in.

This is the part that only goes in circles that many find themselves in. They pray to God asking Him to restore, heal and bless their marriage, but while they are not praying, they are complaining and murmuring to others how bad things are. Then they wonder and question why God does not help them more. God cannot bless your marriage or your spouse and answer your prayers if you are complaining and murmuring to others or in your heart.

God works with your words, don’t despite your words. Why is this true? Because complaining and murmuring about a troubled marriage is evidence that one doesn't believe that God is presently working it all out. We must remember that without faith, we cannot please and receive from God. If you really believed that God was working to change and restore your marriage, then you would talk as if He was actively doing just that.

Our words about our spouse and marriage spoken to others reveal what we believe. Murmuring and complaining reveal no faith that God is indeed actively healing, changing and restoring your marriage. God is eager to make marriage heaven on earth for everyone. Marriage is His creation. God Himself established marriage in the earth among men and women. The Marriage Institution is not broken. However, there is a war on marriage today.

The strength of our churches, society and nation is founded upon the strength of its marriages. The enemy to marriage knows well that he only has to create murmuring and complaining, which give birth to bitterness and cut off God’s power to create heaven on earth in our marriages.

Murmuring and complaining is the direct opposite of faith. It is simply impossible to have faith in God for your marriage and yet still complain and murmur in your thoughts and heart about your marriage or spouse. Learning to bless what you want to be a blessing is a key to release the power of answered prayer. Learning to forgive those who you desire to love you more tenderly is the only way for God to work in that person’s life. Learning to cast all your care upon the Lord as you bless and curse not is the open door to the power of prayer. God cannot bless what you are not blessing! Listen to what Isaiah says: “Whoever PRONOUNCES A BLESSING in the earth will do so in the name of the FAITHFUL GOD; whoever makes an oath in the earth will do so in the name of the faithful God. For PAST PROBLEMS WILL BE FORGOTTEN; I will no longer think about them”. Isaiah 65: 16

Also in Psalms 109: 17, the Bible says “As he LOVED CURSING, so let it come to him: as he DELIGHTED NOT IN BLESSING, so let it be far from him.” If you believe God is faithful to fulfill all His promises, then practice the culture of blessing your marriage partner because past problems will be forgotten.

When you bless your partner, Heaven responds to your need. The warning God gave us is to “Let all BITTERNESS, and wrath, and ANGER, and clamour, and EVIL SPEAKING, be put away from you, with all malice” Ephesians 4:31 (KJV)

I would like us to pray that God would heal and remove the bitterness in our hearts and turn our BITTER MARRIAGE into a BETTER MARRIAGE. Stop reading right now and start to bless your spouse. I hope these thoughts will help you to let bitterness go and enable you to embrace the sweetness that your marriage offers.