Have You Ever Wondered Why Prayers Are Sometimes Not Answered Immediately? Here’s Why
A kabbalistic view.
Unanswered prayer has nothing to do with how religious you are and has little to do with how often you honor the laws. It has got to do with perspective.
If you knew my story, you knew I grew up religious. I was a member of the church who sometimes considers themselves Christian, and sometimes they don't, simply because of the difference in how we view God and Jesus Christ among other Christian religions.
I was taught to pray like this.
First, you address the Father in Heaven, then thank Him for every blessing you've received, and then you ask for what you need and close it in the name of Jesus Christ.
It goes like this:
Heavenly Father,
We/I thank thee…
We/I ask thee…
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
I'm not saying there's a problem with this method of prayer. I believe that whichever comes first, between thanking or asking, doesn't really matter. What matters is your intention when you pray. What matters is how you perceive reality when you pray — mostly how you perceive the reality of your circumstance.
How do we usually pray?
I used to pray like this.
"Father, I ask thee to grant me this and that," like we are asking for a list of groceries,
"Father, please change the heart of this person and this person," when disagreeing with some people.
"Father, Please give me what I need for this and that," which is another grocery list type.
"…Please change this about my life," because we don't want to be in the same circumstance again or we don't want the type of surroundings we're in.
Or simply, "Please, Father, just make my life comfortable, please?"
What's the problem with the grocery list type of prayer?
A little background on what I'm about to say.
Since I left my church, I stopped going there after learning about its history. I started to study other cultures and their religions. I have studied Taoism since High School, even when I was still active in the church I used to belong to. During the time of my confusion, or what others call "crisis," I opened my door to studying Zen Buddhism. After leaving the church, I started to learn a little about Hinduism and more about the Essenes and Kabbalah.
This answer that I will tell you is according to Kabbalist principles as explained by Anthony Kosinec.
I learned that the way I ask God, or how we usually ask God, is like I or we believe that God is capable of doing good and doing bad when God is actually all good.
"For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations." - Psalm 100:5
And God is unchanging.
"For I am the Lord, I change not…" Malachi 3:6
So, the reason why our prayers are delayed isn't because God is letting us experience this suffering. It is because we are the ones who are not yet ready to receive the answer that we're seeking and whatever God wants to grant to us.
How should we pray?
Knowing this, is there a way for us to pray to our Father in Heaven to be sure that the answer we seek or whatever we ask for won't get delayed?
Of course, there is.
The kabbalist taught us to pray to God in order to change ourselves because we are the only ones blocking our way to see the goodness of God—really.
And once you've changed, your circumstances will change.
Once you see reality the way God sees it, meaning, in a different perspective, how you see it now, how you see your reality changes. You then want what the creator wants, not what the ego wants.
Your neighbor,
Wam