Prayer that God Answers

By William Dudding

This isn't a new discovery for me, but having seen answers to prayer like I have never experienced before, I want to share something that may be a help to you as well.

When you pray, how do you ask God for things? Why do you ask Him? I used to just pray for things that I needed because I knew that God commanded me to do it, but rarely did I ever experience real answers to prayer that I could point to and say: "that couldn't have happened, without God making it happen!"

In I Samuel chapter 1, God zeros in on a woman named Hannah. She was not able to have children and it grieved her immensely. You will also find that her husband was married to another woman who bore him many children but the husband showed more effection to Hannah than for his other wife. This situation brought great conflict in their household as you can well imagine. In her distress, she turned to the Lord in prayer verse 10-11 record what she said:

10And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore.
11And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.

The letters that I put in bold print is the phrase that I think really grabbed God's attention. Hannah was not trying to strike a deal with God by bargaining with Him. God does not need our prayers or whatever we can use as bargaining chips. But her attitude of prayer was that of self-denial. The foundation and basis of her prayer request was not so that her own self-interest would be satisfied, or that her shame would be vindicated, but rather that God would benefit for answering her. She was looking out for God's glory and God's best interests. Yes, she would have her own son, and her shame would be taken away, and she would be relieved of her burden, but those reasons were not the reasons she used to make her case before God. Moses also prayed this way when interceding for the children of Israel when God was going to destroy them:

Exodus 32:11-12 And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?
Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.

Moses was more concerned with how God's reputation would be esteemed by the heathen than he was about the lives of millions of people. This truth transformed the way I pray for things. I stop asking God to answer my prayers so I can heap them upon my own desires, but rather I sincerely try to find out how answering my prayer will benefit God in some way before I even ask Him. Sometimes, I have to just drop the request because while seeking the will of God and not my own will, I find that some of my requests are not worth taking to His throne. Not because they are not important requests, but because the whole motivation is self-centered.

Hannah's trail was not an accident. It was the Lord who shut up her womb! He done it! For what reason? That was for Hannah to find out herself. God was teaching her something, building her character. Instead of asking that God answer her prayer for some superficial reason, she pleaded for God to be glorified by answering her, and her prayer made it into the pages of scripture.