God always answers our prayers

Lewis tells us about God saying no to our prayers today in A Year with C.S. Lewis.

And that brings up the fact that God always answers our prayers. It may not feel like it sometimes, especially when the answer is no. Those are times that require great faith - to trust Him to know what's best for us even when it's different from what we think.

But one thing I realize is that when God says no to our prayer, in a sense it really is US saying no to God in our prayer. See, one of the things we realize after we learn to pray is that we are learning to agree with God in our prayer. We are learning what He wants for us and learning to say "yes" to it, like Mary did. But when we decide we want something different from what He wants for us, then we say "no" to Him, and we ask for things in our prayer that He is then forced to say "no" to us back.

We come to Him in prayer because He first loves us and draws us to Him. And when we genuinely seek His will for us, we find ourselves saying "yes" to what He is calling us to, which causes Him to have to say "no" to our prayers far less often.

God, teach us to live in agreement with Your will.