Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayer?

Do you ever feel when you have been waiting SO long for something you wish to happen and it still hasn't happened? Don't worry, i can surely relate!


One of the challenging thing in life is to learn or embody the lesson of patience. It is a BIG lesson for me and i have come to realise that the more we insist on seeing the scenario in our head to happen the more we suffer. Why? Because there is a flow in life and it's NOT in our control.


I personally found consolation in the word of Ibn Atha'illah in the Book of Hikam. He wrote,

"Don't let the keeping back of something you are fervently asking for, make you despair. He has guaranteed an answer to your prayers in those things He chooses for you, not in those things that you choose for yourself, and at the time He wants, not at the time you want."


I read that over and over again

"He has guaranteed..."

"...things He chooses for you..."

"...not at the time you want..."

It takes awhile. To digest. To internalize. To really get it.


Because when you feel that God is not answering our prayers, there is an empty space of knowledge that we must seek and fill. Why? Because essentially every prayer we say, every need we have, every desire that is emerge is merely a reflection of object that God has prepared. This is the truth. We won't be wanting something in our heart, unless there has been an object. In short, without the object God has provided, basically everyone will have no desire to pray.


It's like when we wanting a food because the smell is already smelled from afar. It's just that people are often trapped by impatience and misconception. Like when one of a friend of Prophet Muhammad SAW asked the Messenger of Allah to pray from him because he want to marry a woman that he desire. Prophet said, "Even though yourself and all angels (malaikah) say prayer but if it not his right and not written in the Lauh Mahfuzh (The Book of Decrees), then it would not happen."

His desire to have a soulmate is a hint of an object that God has provided, but his desire for a certain woman is due to his lust.


So when we think when our prayers have not been answered. There is a possibility that we are asking for a wrong object. When God said "Call on Me, [and] I shall respond to you!" In reality He is actually opening a door for us. But it's so often that we are keep knocking at the wrong door. And that explained why we think our prayers have not been answered all this time while His answered came sometimes not in the same reality that we wanted.


Therefore, it is better if we realized our position as a humble servant who does not know the consequences that will happen behind our wishes. And surrender ourself to the will of All-Wise God who choses for us something that is best for our own sake and accept the choice of a Loving, All-Knowing and Wise God. Even though in the beginning it tastes bitter and painful.


But do you know what the most important aspect, the most beautiful purpose and the sweetest result of the prayer is actually NOT in the result of getting what we want. That is just a bonus. But the person who is praying realizes that there is God, a Power, a Consciousness, A Divine Being,  -whatever they want to call it. That is ABLE to do anything. ANYTHING. Who is ABLE to fulfill our never ending wishes and The One who has such Compassion for our weaknesses. And that makes us a better human being.


So, never give up prayer, it is the key to the treasure of mercy and means to endless power. Pray, right now.