By: Elizabeth Haarberg

Ask and Receive

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking this SoundCloud link.

We have a cat, Moose, whom we adore. Moose is a mostly outdoor cat who lives on the front porch since she and our other cat, Maggie, who lives on the back porch, are not able to see eye to eye and hiss and fight when they see each other. Moose ran into the garage a couple of weeks ago when my daughter was pulling her car into the garage. As my daughter was pulling in, Moose got under one of the tires and immediately ran out and sat in the front yard, stunned and in shock. There was evidence that she had been struck but we were not sure to what extent. Not long after being hit, Moose ran off and went missing. In the meantime, my other daughter and I prayed for Moose that she would be healed and there would be protection around her. We have prayed for other animals in the past, and they have died every time we have prayed, so I didn’t expect to see Moose again. But two days later Moose was at the backdoor, hungry and healthy. So how do I reconcile prayers in the past that were not answered and now it appears this one was?

There are a number of verses that instruct us to ask and it will be given: Mark 11:24, Matthew 21:22, Matthew 18:19, John 15:7, John 15:16, John 16:23-24.

But what about when we pray all those other times and our prayers aren’t answered?

“You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” James 4:24

“We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him.” John 9:37

Other verses address unanswered prayer: Psalm 66:18, Isaiah 59:2, Jeremiah 14:10, James 1:6-7 as well as many others.

Prayer is mysterious in the way that it works, but there are clear instructions to pray and expect the prayer to be answered. Why the prayer isn’t answered is difficult to understand, sometimes impossible to understand, but we don’t stop praying because we don’t get what we want; we continue to ask and press forward.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado