Prayer – Does God Really Hear My Prayers?

Years ago, I had a crisis of faith. My prayers were bouncing off  the ceiling of my room. They were just empty words tumbling from an empty head to empty space. Where was God? Don’t get me wrong. I believed in God. I believed in prayer. I just gave up believing that MY prayers were heard. To  me, it was pretty clear that I was not being heard.

I attended a small Baptist church in Phoenix, Arizona. My mother and three of my siblings attended as well. I lived at home with them. I’d been out of the Navy for a few years, had been working up near the Grand Canyon as a tour guide for a large underground cavern, and was temporarily out of work. Jobs were plentiful, back then. While I could have gotten a job locally, instead,  I got a job way out in Goodyear, Arizona working the evening shift. I moved out of my mother’s home, rented an apartment and left the church.

Life became a rather dull routine. I worked until 11 PM, drove about 10 minutes to my small apartment, watched tv, snacked, then tumbled into bed. I rose around 7 AM, perked a pot of coffee, made breakfast (no restaurant in the town), pulled a used, western novel from one of several grocery bags filled with such fare (no library in town, either), and read until about noon.

I would read some more after lunch, then would sit and read westerns until close to 3 PM. Then, I would make a sandwich and toss it into a brown paper bag with some chips, fill my thermos with hot coffee and head to work. On the weekends, the only variation was a drive to an out-of-town grocery store to stock up on TV dinners and other such nutritious junk.

One evening, about 6 months into my monastic life, I decided to go out into the foothills nearby. I loved the mountains and even the desert. So, I drove into the moonlit desert, not following a road but merely following my curiosity. After a half hour of twisting, turning and convoluted driving, I found myself on top of a small Mesa. Below me was the broad, sweeping expanse of the desert merging into the lights of Phoenix.

I got out of the car, walked to the passenger side and hoisted myself onto the fender. One of the reasons I had for going to the desert was that a few days earlier, I’d decided I would pray to God. Or, perhaps I should say, I was going to try to pray.

I started talking out loud, but then I thought, “Well, I guess I really should kneel.” I knew God can hear whether one is on his knees or not, but I just felt I owed Him that respect.  So, I slid off the fender, walked about 10 feet ahead and knelt on the hard-packed desert floor. Here and there were some scrub pines, a few boulders, and some cactus. The sky was filled with stars, bright and twinkling, and the moon lit the whole area up as though there was a street light in place.

I began talking out loud to God (apologizing for the 6 month absence), when suddenly a drop of water hit my face, then another, and then another, and another; and the rain kept on sprinkling on me lightly. But, I could see just inches in front of me, it was not raining. I looked to my left. No rain. I looked to my right, just inches away again, no rain. I looked behind me and saw that just inches away, again there was no rain.

It was just raining on me.

I look up and way up in the sky and  saw a tiny cloud directly above my head. That tiny  cloud was dropping its water on me and only me! Bitterly, I said to God, “See Lord? I haven’t talked to you in 6 months and when I do, I get rained on,” I took a deep breath, looked up again, feeling the water peppering my face, and in a voice filled with self-righteous pity, declared, “I don’t even know if you hear me when I pray. If you hear me when I pray, make it stop raining!”

Instantly, the rain stopped.

I have been in a lot of range of my day and grew up in Louisiana where I was in many rains, but I have never been in a rain where the drops stopped in mid-air. I was so shocked that took me a bit of  time to believe that the rain had actually stopped. I kept expecting to feel a drop of rain to  hit my face. Nothing. Not a single drop. There was only the silence of the desert. 

I felt a rush of emotion sweep over me. I felt very ashamed of myself and yet I was overwhelmed with joy because I knew that God had heard my prayer. I knew this was of God. That was so clear. And, I wept, something very unusual for me, especially as a 24 year old man. In my world, men did not cry. That’s how I grew up. I don’t recall ever crying after the age of five or six.

I  started to pray,  then almost as if an audible voice had spoken, I knew I was to go to the Bible and begin reading. It was an urge I could not ignore.  Fortunately, I had put my Bible in my glove compartment where it had been stashed for the many months. I went to the passenger side, slid into the seat, took out the Bible, laying it on the compartment lid, and with the little light that came on from the glove compartment, began reading, compulsively. Verses began leaping off the pages and into my heart. I kept getting insights to verses that I’d read many times before, but now they suddenly had meanings that seemed to shout their truths at me. I literally began whipping through the pages, devouring verses.

That night, God began teaching me some things about prayer that have enabled me to endure through some pretty tough times in life, and have kept me coming back to God in prayer even after some long, dry and silent times. I’m not a guru. There is more to know about prayer than I will ever know. There are people who have far greater wisdom and experience in prayer than I have.

However, over the years I’ve accumulated a lot more wisdom with regards to prayer than I had that night. I still have prayers that seemingly don’t get answered. And, I have learned that some of the things God showed me that early  morning in the desert were misunderstood. Like so many before me, I leaped to some conclusions about some things God revealed to me, assuming that I completely understood what I was shown. As I’ve matured, I’ve come to realize that are times when one must put some serious study into a matter in order to fully appreciate that truth. I learned to take the truths God gave me and link them to other truths that make the original truth so much greater.  I’ve also learned that when it comes to understanding a truth in the Bible, one absolutely must dig beneath the surface in order to truly understand and comprehend the whole truth of a matter. Virtually all of the truths I learned that night have been greatly expanded. Where I had a small nugget of truth, I now have, in most instances, truths that are to me, boulders of solid gold.

Years ago, I wrote a book about prayer, detailing the things I learned that night. But, God stopped me and showed me that there were yet some lessons in prayer that I needed to learn. He was right, of course. I’m pretty close to rewriting that book, now. I think finally, I know enough to stand and declare these truths, with some authority. I’ve written the book twice and had to shelve it. The third time is a charm, right? I haven’t committed to it, yet. But, I do have a title.

The ultimate title of the book will be: How  to Take Your Case to God…and Win!”

Bottom line: God hears you. He answers every prayer you pray. Every one.

Our problem is that we don’t get the answer we expected or wanted. Often, God will say no. We can’t see why not, but God sees things we don’t see and knows that sometimes, if we got what we asked for, we’d self-destruct. I know that’s true in my case. I asked for some things back then that, in hindsight, I am grateful He said no.

And, sometimes, God’s answer is “Wait.” And, you may get the answer He gave to me when I whined enough to get a response. God told me that I was not ready to receive what I’d asked for and that I needed to reach a place in life where I could receive that request I’d made.

I asked God for a lot of things that night. Many things I prayed that night, I’ve received. Some took years to arrive. A very small handful are still in the works. One day, I will get what I asked for, but for now, I can only wait.  

So, don’t give up praying. You don’t have to be perfect. You only have to….

It just occurred to me that I probably need to re-write that book.