Tracking God's answers to prayer

It is Wednesday, the roughest day of the week in my opinion. I look at the list of things I wanted to accomplish for the week, then start calculating in my head the percentage I have completed. Then I start thinking (and some weeks panicking) about what is left to do.

Yesterday I wrote a post discussing whether we are looking for the right answers. An answered prayer is not just one where we get what we want. If we are faithful, God hears and answers all of our prayers. It just may not be what we want to hear. But we must keep faithful that God knows what is best for us.

Forgive me now, but I must put my marketing hat on. When it comes to technology helping in our prayer lives, I believe my competition in the App Store is missing the point. If you search for prayer list or prayer journal, you will find a good number of apps that fit the bill. But take a closer look at these apps and you'll see that they are focused on the wrong things. Most have functionality to mark a prayer answered. Okay, on the surface that sounds great, right? But look deeper and see that tracking answers to prayer may lead to discouragement. Why? Because, surely we won't mark a prayer answered if we didn't get what we wanted out of the prayer. Remember, God answers yes, no, not now, or have this instead. If we focus on only what we want out of a prayer, we are looking for our will to be done, not God's will. My app, PrayerSteward, focuses on keeping your prayer commitments orderly, so that each time you launch the app, you will remember all of your prayer commitments. Some of the apps have a shuffle feature, allowing you to specify a certain number of prayers to get each day. Is that how God instructs us to pray?

"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." 1 John 5:14-15

Does not this verse tell us that we should not tally how many of our prayers are answered? It tells us that all of our prayers are heard and answered. It is important to keep this in mind, especially when we are challenged with situations that we know have a chance to not turn out the way we want. A friend or family member diagnosed with cancer, has a stroke or heart attack. What we want in these situations is for God to reach down with His healing hands and provide full recoveries. But the truth is that God has a plan for that person, and all of us. We only know one thing about that plan. If we have faith, we are saved by God's grace alone and will live eternally with Him in heaven. Beyond that, we do not know the path that we, or anyone else will take to get there.

When praying, remember to pray for His will to be done. And do not just look for the answer that you want, but look for the answer that God gives. Maybe it is yes, maybe no. Or maybe God has given you something else instead or is waiting until you are ready for a yes or no. Remember that God's answer is always what is best for us.

May God bless your Wednesday.