This is a complement to our current message series, “Prayer Changes Everything.” It is a blog post that I wrote back in March 2012.

I was recently asked an interesting question by a friend of mine about the nature of prayer. His question went along these lines: “If two people are both praying to God but asking Him for two opposite things, to whom does God listen?” At first, I thought that this would be rather easy to answer and just say, “He listens to the one who prays the will of God.” But after thinking about it more carefully, I realized that this was no easy question. We need to take a good look at all the many different facets of prayer.

First of all, we must realize that God does not “listen” to anyone (at least not in the sense of being manipulated by anyone). Therefore, the actual answer to prayer is based on a number of factors.

The Laws of Nature

God designed and put into place the laws of nature. So, unless He decides to supernaturally step in and alter them, prayers against these laws will not be answered. For example, it would be foolish to pray that a ball wouldn’t come down to Earth after you throw it up. Or that you wouldn’t get hurt if you willfully went out and played in traffic. God designed that natural laws require a cause and effect relationship.

Our Walk with God

Another factor in a successful prayer life is our relationship or our closeness with God. Being close with God enables us to more clearly know His will and thereby pray accordingly. You remember that Jesus prayed for the Father’s will to be done here on Earth as in Heaven. This is a major clue to us in that we can see that there are times when God’s will is unfortunately not accomplished on this Earth. This statement indicates to us that there is a force that opposes or delays the will of God from being done on Earth. Daniel, Chapter 10, gives us an example of a behind the scenes battle taking place between one of God’s angels and an agent of satan. This example shows us the need for continuing in “battle prayer” until an answer from God is received. Note also that the scripture in 2 Corinthians 4 calls satan the “god of this world” and thus indicates that he has some negative degree of influence on Earthly matters.

Additionally, we need to make sure that our prayer requests are in line with the Word of God. We cannot confidently pray for something that He has not promised us. For example, although God did promise to meet our physical/financial needs, He did not promise to grant you 10 million dollars by winning the lottery. Likewise, we cannot accurately pray against a specific Biblical doctrine (like praying that you don’t need a Savior or that God didn’t create the Earth).

Human Will

The next factor to consider is that of human will. We often wonder how the desires and wills of another person can affect the outcome of the things that we pray for. After all, we cannot change the will of another person. We must recognize that after the creation of mankind, God gave mankind dominion over this planet. He gave us authority. This can be both good and bad. It is, unfortunately, many times our “human will” that is done here and not “God’s will.” Therefore, although God may have had a certain plan that He wanted to execute, the plans and desires of mankind can hinder or delay that design of God.

Faith

Lastly, we need to examine the factor of the strength of our faith. In many places throughout the Gospels, Jesus told people that He would grant their request based on their faith. “Your faith has made you whole,” or “Be it done to you according to your faith,” are common responses from Jesus to those who had come to Him in need. So, we must ask ourselves, “Are we convinced that God will do what He said He would?” We are told in Romans 10:17 that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. We are therefore responsible for building our faith through reading, hearing, and studying God’s Word. The more we build our faith through fellowship with God, the more we become convinced of His desire to bless us, His children.

So, in summary, what we are to do is this: Be right with God, seek His will, believe it in faith, and then fervently and persistently ask God to bring it to pass. This will result in a successful prayer life.