Often it has been that I have repeated, "You know that your prayers are answered because you obey His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight!" I have taken that to heart and always sought to satisfy those requirements. But, I have had multitudes of prayers unanswered through the decades. There really are categories of prayers:
Prayers for my own healing and that of others. The fulfillment of these prayers often should take into consideration whether the maladies are due to our own or others' neglect of good health habits or hygiene. A life time of smoking is not necessarily going to have healing from emphysema. Sometimes family genes are responsible for maladies. However, our God is the One, Who hears and performs miracles beyond expectations.
Personal prayers of mine for desires of my heart to be fulfilled. These end up being prayers usually to satisfy my needs or wants. These can be for relationships, attitudes and provision. These may not be answered, because God does not desire the outcome we desire, because He sees ahead and it is not His will for us.
Really major ones are to pray for our sins to be forgiven or for us to forgive others of transgressions or hurts put upon us by others.
Back in 1994 I had lost my position as a political appointee in the President George H.W. Bush administration due to a change in the political party in power the previous year. I was employed in Durham, NC and my then-wife Jackie had filed for divorce from me. All the reasons need not be documented here, although she had severe hurts from the years after I came back from the Vietnam War and had become a double leg amputee with all the attendant issues from this severe combat operating stressor. I had traveled to Pennsylvania for a weekend with Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets from all over the east coast. I was in a discussion group with several of them and expressed my prayers she would change her mind. One very wise college student told me, even though I prayed mightily that we would not have to divorce, that a change by her would require a choice by her to withdraw her legal action. My prayers had no impact on her decision expressed by the choice to express her free will. God would not override her decision just because I prayed she would cancel the divorce proceedings. God has not made us puppets to tell us what to do. My prayers had no impact on her decision. Our divorce eventually proceeded to fulfillment.
One issue that was very important to me to resolve was that she forgive me for volunteering in 1966 for service in Vietnam without talking it over with her. I had an opportunity for an assignment to avoid the war, but knew my conscience would not allow me to miss Vietnam without guilt all my life, a life built upon the West Point motto of Duty Honor Country. I volunteered for service in the war and I must have admitted the choice without her approval, when under anesthesia or the several months of morphine. At any rate she found out and had harbored for a quarter of a century unforgiveness and bitterness toward me for causing the horrendous challenges we suffered due to my war wounds.
Also, in 1994 at a Bible Study in northern Virginia one weekend away from Durham, I ended up in a room at our place of worship with the pastor. He asked me if there were any specific prayer requests I had. I answered that my wife(our divorce had not yet been finalized) had never forgiven me for my failure to discuss with her such a monumental decision as volunteering for a war. He taught me a lesson on changing attitudes or decisions made by others through a unique example of prayer. He told me, even if I prayed mightily that she would forgive me, that God would not override that decision. But he said, "We will pray that there will be 'Laborers of the Harvest' in her path to convict her to forgive me."
We prayed that the Lord teaches us we must forgive all others of their transgressions or we ourselves would not be forgiven of our own transgressions. I asked him how that worked. He said we will pray she reads something, watches something, hears something on media or from someone else about God's teaching on forgiveness. I went back to Durham having great apprehension of the validity of that prayer!
Two weeks later I was in Durham and she called me from Austin, Texas. She said, "I forgive you for volunteering for Vietnam without discussing it with me, when you had your chance to miss the war." I asked her why after all these years. She said she had watched Christian television the night before and on Trinity Broadcasting Network she listened to a program from Denver, Colorado with Marilyn Hickey in which she said that the Bible mentions eighteen times about the requirement spiritually to forgive all others or you will not be forgiven.
Do I believe in prayer? Mightily I do! She did not forgive me because I prayed she would, but that prayer worked on her free will to change her mind and heart toward me! For this example and many others I truly believe Jesus is the Son of God and prayers to God in the Name of Jesus have a high probability of being answered, but a few ground rules do apply!
