²² And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Matthew 21:22 ESV)

How can we truly have faith in our prayers? How can we truly expect them to be fulfilled? We all ask these questions and, in truth, because we do many of our prayers may seem to go unanswered. But I, personally, believe that God see’s to all of our prayers.

I think we have three things working against us here.

First, our faith is weak. The disciples, who watched Christ do all these miraculous things struggled with their faith, and we struggle with ours. Scripture tells us that if we have faith we can tell a mountain to be cast into the sea and it will happen. But how many of us would even think our faith come move a stone, much less a mountain.

Second, we pray to God in selfish ways. We often want a genie and not a God who loves us and knows what is best for us. We think we know best. We cannot see the longer term outcomes of events in our lives, so we often pray shortsighted prayers. If we saw for a moment what God sees, in regard to our lives, we would probably pray so differently. We do not trust.

We do not pray as if what we pray for has already happened. I have written on this a lot. We pray like little children, not like those mature in faith. We pray timidly and do not come to God knowing in our heart that He will hear us and act in our best interest.

We must change how we look at prayer and pray in confidence and with great expectation.