Why does God not answer 100% of prayers?

This is a great question! I'd love to provide some help in your understanding! Ashamedly, I am not the best at referencing scripture, but I will add a couple of links to articles with more detail and scripture!

God is perfect and sufficient, not lacking anything. Yet even through this, He desires a relationship with us, his creation. (If this doesn't make sense to you, join the club!) This is a display of His perfect love for us! In His desire for a relationship with us, He wants us to bring our wants, doubts, and fears to Him. Being the perfect and loving God, His plans are for our good and for His glory- the perfect God deserves all glory and praise, after all! Bringing our prayers to Him, whether requests or praises, is a way that we can submit to Him, acknowledging that He is the only One with the power and ability to meet/grant our needs. While we have the opportunity to bring these things before Him, He is still working for our good and His glory. Being an all-knowing and omniscient God, He knows what things are truly for our best in the long-run (no pun intended), and what things are not for His glory. He answers all prayers, though sometimes he answers "no" or "not yet." While that seems harsh, this is again an opportunity we have to submit to Him as a loving God and trust that He truly does have our best in mind. As "55 YO" mentioned earlier, and you may be able to relate too, there are many things we look back on where we thought there was something that we absolutely needed to happen, but now we can see that it's a good thing that prayer didn't get granted! Also, as we spend more time getting to know Him through prayer and reading scripture, along with other disciplines, we begin to be aligned more like His character and our desires better reflect His desires. Since He is a loving God that wants the best for us, when we reflect His desires, our wants become more aligned with His and those begin to be the things we bring to Him. This is the reason for Jesus saying "You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it." The more "faith" you have, the more your heart aligns with His, which means you are more likely to ask for things that He wants to provide!

I know this may seem confusing and maybe even contradictory... 1) I'm an imperfect human. Even though I intend to explain God's character clearly with this post, I can't confidently say that I was successful haha! 2) I would encourage whoever reads this and wants to learn more to look into the following links, and even continue searching the GotQuestions website with more questions concerning Christianity, God, and the Bible! It's a great resource! Thanks for reading this long message!

"Why Pray" -

gotquestions.org

Why pray? | GotQuestions.org

GotQuestions.org

Why pray? What is the point of prayer when God knows the future and is already in control of everything? If we cannot change God’s mind, why should we pray?

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"How Can I Have My Prayers Answered By God?" -

gotquestions.org

How can I have my prayers answered by God? | GotQuestions.org

GotQuestions.org

How can I have my prayers answered by God? Why does it seem like God never answers my prayers?

Open link

Religion requires a current subscription, so people who fall behind on their payments don’t get their prayers answered. Clearly, if your house is getting foreclosed, you have nothing to give to religion.

God is too busy helping athletes score touchdowns to have the time to answer all prayers.

Besides, imagine how bad the world would be if everything everyone wished for suddenly came true.

Leo Bloom: [to Max] What pun?

Max Bialystock: Shut up, he thinks he's witty.

None of this makes sense. You said so yourself. Let's break down some of the contradictions:

1) If God is perfect and all-powerful, why does he desire the worship and relationship of his creations? Is he insecure?

2) Why would God create humans on Earth if he desires a relationship with us? Why not just keep us closer, in Heaven? What purpose does it serve to send his creations to another realm, to hopefully rediscover a relationship with him (if we're lucky)?

3) If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, then prayers are a waste of time. The dye is cast - your destiny is already decided by God. Praying for another outcome is not going to change that.

4) If praying in fact could change God's mind, why would he listen to us? He knows infinitely more than us, so he should already know what's best for us. If God changes his mind based on a single prayer, maybe his grand design wasn't all that great?

5) If you pray really hard and are a devout Christian, yet still don't get what you want, is God punishing you? Were you not enough? Was 50 prayers to few, and 52 prayers would have done the trick?

The modern conception of "prayer" as you've outlined above seems to be a grown-up version of Santa Claus, asking for things you want from a supernatural being. When Jesus said "You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it" he probably meant "Prayer orients your mind and attitude towards a particular thing, and if you focus enough on that thing you'll get it." An ancient version of positive thinking and cognitive-behavioral alignment.

Look, I understand that faith requires you to suspend logic at times, but there are things are just so self-contradictory with modern Christianity that it falls apart at the slightest scrutiny. It's really hard to take seriously.

Do you think he is omnipotent or something?

Also, what happens when he gets conflicting prayers? Like UGA fans praying for a win this weekend and Texas fans also praying for a win?

God does answer all prayers. Sometimes however, the answer is NO.

Everybody know's God doesn't answer squat. Some clever people have turned it in to a false- hope money-making game by reassuring dummies that God does.

If god is omniscient (all knowing for the poorly educated) then why would he need to hear from some human about what to do? This. along with the claim that he loves you but will sentence you to eternal d@mnation if you don't love him - something no loving parent would ever do to their child - really makes me wonder what people are thinking. And then there are the people who think they are made in god's image. Talk about the height of conceit!

I really needed my child's terminal brain cancer to be healed. Do you think I really needed that? Why wasn't the prayer answered?

I suggest reading the bible. You will quickly learn that God is a psychopath.

If one starts from the premise that no god exists, the answer is straightforward.

Nearly always, actually. Successful prayer is limited to the things God ordered us to pray for:

- God is hallowed and should be king of everything
- God should get to do whatever he wants
- let us have some bread
- don't punish us for being bad
- don't let us be bad

Did you even read my post

Also, Zachariah, I appreciate the genuine question and honest curiosity/uncertainty. It's a hard/tricky topic to navigate, even for Christians! There are some things that just don't make sense and life is hard. Christians are told that life on Earth will be difficult for us, even though we are the ones that are also promised hope and joy in Christ! Personally, I can say that Christ has definitely brought hope, joy, peace, and so much more in the highs and lows of life. I'm still young (24 y/o) and have much more life and hardship to live, Lord willing, but looking back, I can be see that He has continued to lift me up... and that provides so much confidence as I continue living through uncertainty that life brings.

Zachariah and everyone else that is wrestling with the idea of God being a loving God, I want you to hear (or in this case, read) that He loves you so much. You may not acknowledge him as your god, but He loves you as His own, because you ARE His creation. There is nothing you can do to escape His love, and all you have to do is accept His love that was shown through Jesus' death on the cross. God is perfect and desires a relationship with us, and He knows that we are imperfect and can't do anything to earn our way to perfection or heaven. But even through our imperfection, He still desires to spend the rest of eternity with us. Again, we can't do anything on our own to earn/deserve this, no matter how hard we try. You can't earn it no matter how many good acts you do, or even Bible verses you memorize. The only way for us imperfect beings to be bridged back to a perfect relationship with God is if a perfect being died as a the perfect sacrifice on behalf of our imperfection. God knew that too, which is why He came down to Earth in human form as Jesus, to live the perfect life that He knows we can't do, and die the death that we ALL deserve (we deserve death because of our sin- which is anything that separates us from God. Romans 6:23 says "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord"). Even after living a life without sin/blemish for 33 years as a human, and dying as a sacrifice for us (in the same way that the Israelites used to sacrifice unblemished animals in the Old Testament), Jesus proved His power and authority over death and sin by rising from the grave after three days. He could have done so in a matter of seconds, but He wanted to show that even after the decay process begun, He was more powerful than this human death. Jesus lived the life that we couldn't, died the death that we deserved, and proved His power over death and sin... and all we have to do to secure our place in heaven next to him, is believe. Some will tell you that you need to live a good life, or tithe a large amount of money to a church, and they shame you when these things don't happen. But they are wrong and misleading, and misrepresenting God's love for His creation. All you have to do is believe in God's perfect love and Jesus' death and resurrection, and you are welcomed into eternal life with Him! Please don't miss this invitation from the God who loves you more than you could imagine! You may be thinking "but I have done so many bad things that I don't deserve to be loved"... and you're right! We don't deserve His love, but still He loves us with a perfect love that we can't even begin to fully comprehend! Or maybe you're thinking "but a truly loving God wouldn't make us jump through these hoops in order to be with Him in heaven." To that, I respond that in the beginning, we had a perfect relationship with us and He even walked alongside us (Adam) in the Garden of Eden! But after being tempted and deceived by Satan (the serpent) in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve went against God's word and brought sin/imperfection into the world. Being fully perfect, God literally couldn't be in the presence of such imperfect beings. This created a gap between us and God that, again, could only be bridged by the perfect sacrifice. God came down to Earth as Jesus, fully God and fully human, to live and die for us, then conquered death. So, to answer, we brought it upon ourselves with our sinful nature and God-revolting desires/actions.

All throughout the Bible in the Old Testament, you see God's pursuit of His people and His people's natural rebellion because of their sinful nature/tendencies. But in His perfect plan that He references many times throughout the OT, the New Testament begins with the life of Jesus. After the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), the book of Acts follows the historical aspect of the beginning of the Church after Christ's ascension into heaven. Most of the rest of the NT is the Epistles, or letters to churches/people. These letters often require context of time period/who is receiving the letter, but they lay out the what and why of Christianity! Many people in this day and age call themselves Christians, but don't live in a way that proclaims who Christ is, and for that I apologize on behalf of them. I'm sorry for anyone that has misled you on what Christianity is. I hope you can forgive them, even if you feel they are undeserving (we are all undeserving of forgiveness, and yet Christ still died for us!). And I hope you can open your heart again to the thought of an all loving God that desires a relationship with you no matter what your circumstances!

I wasn't intending on writing out an entire novel again, so I apologize for the length... but I'm glad I could share my understanding of God's perfect and gracious love!

I hope this provides an answer/reasoning on what the Christian faith is about!

@TAMU..

I can sense your passion in your post describing the essence of the Christian faith, but there are several logical inconsistencies that merit attention:

1. Unconditional Love vs. Conditional Salvation
You describe God's love as unconditional and inescapable, yet simultaneously assert that belief in Jesus is necessary for eternal life. If God's love truly has no conditions, requiring belief for salvation appears contradictory. How can love be both without prerequisites and yet dependent on faith?

2. Faith Alone vs. Importance of Works
While you emphasize that salvation is achieved through faith alone and that no amount of good deeds can earn it, you also stress the importance of living in a way that reflects Christ's teachings. This creates confusion about the role of actions—if works don't contribute to salvation, why highlight their significance in demonstrating genuine faith?

3. Divine Perfection vs. Relational Desire
You portray God as perfectly desiring a relationship with inherently imperfect humans. This raises a theological dilemma: How can a perfect being maintain a relationship with flawed individuals without compromising His perfection? It seems challenging to reconcile divine perfection with the need for relational interaction with imperfect beings.

4. Universal Love vs. Selective Salvation
Your message conveys that God's love is universal and inescapable, yet eternal life is presented as attainable only through belief in Jesus. This selective pathway to salvation within the framework of universal love poses questions about the inclusivity of God's love. How does universal love align with the exclusivity of salvation through a specific belief?

5. Human Agency vs. Divine Initiative
While you highlight God's initiative in desiring a relationship and offering salvation, you also state that human acknowledgment and acceptance are necessary. This interplay can seem inconsistent—if God's desire is truly unconditional, why is human action required to fulfill that relationship?

6. Authentic Representation of Faith
You critique believers for not authentically representing Christianity while advocating that faith alone secures salvation. This suggests that genuine faith must be accompanied by specific behaviors, which can undermine the assertion that salvation is solely based on faith without works.

How do you (or Christians in general) reconcile these?

You have great questions haha! First off, thank you for reading both of my posts. I know how easy it is to just glance past long messages on this website, especially if it's something that you don't agree with. Wanted to acknowledge that, and also say that your processing/questions are challenging to me in my faith and understanding of who God is too, which for me, makes me even more thankful for who He is to me! So thank you!

I trust that you are asking out of true curiosity and challenging me for the sake of clarity on my beliefs. Which again, I appreciate your willingness to do. I hope you are not just asking these things for the sake of debate... I would challenge/encourage you to have an open mind and heart to these things (which it seems like you already do).

I will respond to both of your replies soon! If only today's schedule allowed for me to sit and type for longer than I already have! Also, as I said before, I would love to be able to say that I am perfect at knowing and communicating answers for these questions but that just isn't the case. While I will definitely do my best, I would also encourage you to do more research on your own on these questions. Simply typing your question into the google search box will almost definitely bring up good answers. GotQuestions.org is also a great resource for these things as well. You can type your question into the google search bar followed by got questions, and you'll most likely find an answer!

Cool! Take your time. I'll be watching the thread.

For the record, I'm not an atheist, nor I am a practicing Christian. I respect and in some ways admire people who have faith. Faith and logic are often enemies, but logic is a human invention and there are many things we don't know about ourselves or the Universe. I am open to hearing your thoughts.

cause the whole thing, as rightly you suspect, is made up.