Answers to Prayers

Elder Brook P. Hales spoke in this last general conference of three types of answers to prayers that we experience in this life:

(1)    “Sometimes that help is given in the very moment or at least soon after we ask for divine help.” 

(2)    “Sometimes our most earnest and worthy desires are not answered in the way we hope, but we find that God has greater blessings in store.”

(3)    “Sometimes our righteous desires are not granted in this life.”   

He gave three stories, each of which illustrated one of the above ways prayers are answered.  The first two are stories that are relatively easy to understand and draw hope from.  In the first a missionary in need of a coat was miraculously provided for.  In the second someone didn’t receive the job he felt he deserved and asked for in faith, but later came to understand “he would have missed a critical, life-changing opportunity that has now proved to be for his eternal benefit and blessing.”  But in the third, a sister named Pat born with normal eyesight went blind by age 11 and her prayers to be healed were never answered.  Elder Hales described this question from a three-year-old nephew to Pat: “Aunt Pat, why don’t you just ask Heavenly Father to give you new eyes? Because if you ask Heavenly Father, He will give you whatever you want. You just have to ask Him.”  On the one hand the question seems naïve, for the Lord surely doesn’t give us everything we ask Him for; and yet, is this not what the scriptures seem to say? The Savior gave this promise to His disciples, “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” (Matt. 21:22).

               There are lots of promises similar to this one in the scriptures about how the Lord will answer our prayers.  The Nephites were told by the Savior: “And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you” (3 Nephi 18:20).  Moroni promised us, “I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth” (Mormon 9:21).  Enos made a similar statement: “Whatsoever thing ye shall ask in faith, believing that ye shall receive in the name of Christ, ye shall receive it” (Enos 1:15).  According to these verses, to receive our desires from the Lord seems to require only two things: prayer and faith in Christ.  But our experiences and even the scriptures themselves give us plenty of examples that show that even those righteous, like Pat, who have great faith and ask the Lord don’t always receive what they desire of God.  We cannot obtain blessings that are contrary to our Father in Heaven’s will for us. 

               Perhaps the most important example in scripture of this is the Savior Himself.  Less than one week after teaching the disciples that what they asked in prayer, believing, they would receive, He prayed this to His Father: “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”  Realizing that the cup could not pass, He then prayed, “O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done” (Matt. 26:39, 42).  We simply cannot obtain that which is not the will of the Lord.  Perhaps implicit in the requirement of faith, perhaps to truly believe in the ability to receive a blessing from the Lord, it must indeed be in accordance with God’s will.  The Savior’s words to the Nephites in 3 Nephi 18:20 seemed to clarify this by adding the phrase “which is right”.  Mormon gave us evidence of this when he prayed but not with true faith because he knew the thing was not in accordance with God’s will: “My soul had been poured out in prayer unto my God all the day long for them; nevertheless, it was without faith, because of the hardness of their hearts” (Mormon 3:12).  He prayed for the protection and salvation of his people with all his heart, and yet he recognized it wasn’t with true faith because deep down he knew of their wickedness and thus he knew this blessing would not be granted.  It’s perhaps important to note as well that in these scriptural promises, there is no promised timeline.  We trust that when we ask with faith the Lord will answer our prayers, and we will obtain that which is in accordance with His will—but it will not always be immediately.  Perhaps Elder Holland said it best: “Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.”