I just can't help but acknowledge that the God who created the heaven and the earth is the same God who caused all the things I consider blessing to come my way.As a Christian, prayer is always the option in any situation. It's like a fuel in our relationship with God. It's our means of communication with God. It's us admitting that without God there is absolutely nothing we can do that will count to eternity.
The truth is, every believer pray. It doesn't matter how long it has been since one became a believer of Jesus. A six - month long believer prays. Pastors pray. Prayer is a common thing for believers of Jesus.
Since it's a common thing, I sometimes find it off when a christian asks another christian, "Did you pray for it?" when they can post this question: "How long have you been praying for it?"
I'm not saying that holding on too long on a prayer item is the basis of good Christianity and faith. I'm just saying that Jesus considers persistent prayer.
"I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs." (Luke 11:8 NKJV)The truth is, God is a God of variety when it comes to answering prayers. For some, His response comes almost instantly - one prays for his phone's battery, 1% charged, to last until his friends arrive and it does; another guy prays for his bus to arrive earlier so he would catch his daughter's recital and it did.
The healing of the centurion's servant in Matthew 8 was instant.
"Then Jesus said to the centurion, 'Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.' And his servant was healed at that moment." (Matthew 8:13, NIV)In some instances, however, believers have to hold on to their prayer requests a little longer than others' before they see God's answers to it coming to reality.
The assurance is this: God hears our prayers. He decides when to answer it.
"Then he continued, 'Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them...'" (Daniel 10:12 NIV)One interesting lesson I have learned is that prayer is actually our response to God's grace. We pray because He has shown Himself able - to save us from eternal damnation, to raise the dead, to do impossible things and more. We pray because we respond to the things we know He did and can do. (I mean, you would not ask someone you know who can't do what you ask for, right?) We pray because of Him. Nothing more, nothing less.
As His servants, assured that He can give us anything, our role is to wait because He is God. He is sovereign. We may never fully understand how He answers our prayers but HE DOES because He is God and that's what matters.