As a parent I don't always respond to my children with the answer they want, but I always try to respond. My role as a parent is to respond in a way that is best for them, sometimes that is by saying yes, other times it is by saying no and still other times it is by saying wait.
My understanding based on my experience with the relationship I have with God is that is the same manor in which he responds to me. He responds in a way that is best for me and the overall purposes of his plan and goal, which is to bring all people into a relationship with him. Sometimes it is with a yes, sometimes with a no and sometimes it is with wait.
When God did not heal the apostle Paul from his ailment, did God not answer him? When God has not answered the prayers of my wife and I to heal her vision or for other requests that we have made, he still answered. Would I have been exposed to the beautiful spiritual lessons that I have been if God always gave me what I want?
God always answers, always, perhaps not always the way we expect though!!
He has a much bigger picture in mind then we do and his answers reflect that as they did for the apostle Paul. Perhaps if we were more in tune with the desires of his heart, we would better understand when and how he responds to us.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (http://www.biblegateway.com)
New International Version (NIV)
7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
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