Does God always answer our prayers? It is a question that begs an answer. How can it be that the abused who seeks respite from his or her condition through prayer for years receives no relief?
Is it that God is not listening, does not care, or wishes for the abused to remain in their terrible condition? Or maybe none of those is correct. Maybe He is answering our prayers, but not the way we expect.
In the midst of ongoing heartache, for many years the consistent, intentional prayer of my heart was that God would open the eyes of my abusive spouse and restore our relationship to wholeness. Now the Word says that if I “have the faith of a mustard seed,” the mountain will be moved. So I prayed for more faith. And because Paul wrote that, “love never fails,” I prayed that God would make me more loving. I also believed that my prayer would eventually win the day because, “the fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” And in His miraculous name, I anticipated the ultimate, favorable answer to the singular cry of my heart: “Lord, save our marriage.”