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Asking God Why

praying with bible 389 SXRuth Starkings shares with us some of her prayers to God, and how she feels He has responded.

Lately, I have found myself saying this a lot. Sometimes it is with a sigh, sometimes with a sob and today it was with a shout. I feel like I have prayed and prayed about the situation I find myself in, and still it feels God is silent.
 
Thoughts run through my mind and I wonder if God is listening, is He there? Is God not answering because I am not good enough? Am I not praying properly or often enough? Have I messed up one too many times to be heard? Then I begin to wonder if what I am praying for is not in line with God’s will, yet I really believe it is.
 
As I give in to all these thoughts and let them overwhelm me, the self-pity joins in too. I ask God why does He answer other people’s prayers and not mine? I feel a bit envious of David who wrote:
‘As for me, I call to God, and the Lord saves me. Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice’. Psalm 55:16-17
 
This is where my thoughts begin to shift. Even though my first thoughts overwhelmed me, by pressing into God’s Word and His truth, I am reminded that God has heard my voice. In this moment, I do not know ‘why’. However, in this moment, I do know this:

  • God is good (Psalm 100:5)
  • He guides, protects, upholds (Deuteronomy 31:8)
  • God is faithful (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Choosing to fix on these truths enables me to lift my gaze, and then I am reminded that God has not been silent. I may feel He has not answered my prayers, yet He has guided me. God has placed the right people in my path at exactly the right time. Devotional emails have arrived in my inbox with precisely the words I needed to read that day. My daily Bible readings have been affirming and encouraging and full of God’s grace – especially when I have fallen behind and am reading what really, I should have read the day before!
 
I am reminded that there is hope and because of God’s faithfulness I know that this season will pass - joy will come in the morning. Then I am able to take a bolder step and choose to trust in my Heavenly Father, my God whose thoughts and ways are so much higher than mine, and who is holding me with His perfect love.
 
I may, at times, still question why, yet by holding on to God’s Word I can stay steadfast and know that my voice has been heard.
 



ruth starkings 150CFRuth Starkings is the Family Worker at Meadow Way Chapel in Hellesdon. She also enjoys writing, and just over a year ago started a blog called ‘With Every Sun Comes A New Day.’
 
 
 

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