Reasons Why Answers To Prayers Are Delayed

The Reasons Why
Prayers may not be answered or be delayed becasue of the following reasons:

Prophecy is equal to realities plus possibilities.
That is why people should pray and watch. You should pray for realities and watch against possibilities that can prevent success and prosperity. When the Israelites prayed for deliverance, God sent Samson to deliver them. But Samson failed to watch against possibilities of being deceived.

Every coin has two sides.
Likewise, answers to prayers have both conditions and blessings. It is quite unfortunate that people usually claim the blessings and refuse to fulfill the relevant conditions. Many say “Abraham’s blessings are mine.” But, they are not ready to exercise faith and patience as Abraham did. I told a lady that she will get married. Also, I told her that she is a minister of God. All the while, she is waiting for the marriage I told her about, but neglects to do her work as a minister of God.

Concurrent training
Apart from answering prayer, God uses the events of life in training people in patience, experience, wisdom, management, faith etc.

Sin delays blessing.
When a child of God commits sin, the Angels may decide to discipline the person by postponing his blessings or answers to prayer.

Counterpart responsibility
Responsibility unto success is based on a 50-50% ratio. There are things God will do to make us succeed, and there are things we should do by ourselves to attain success. At times, we fail to perform our own side of the responsibility, after God has completed His. For example, the heavenly paradise promised to the world is ready, but majority of mankind have not yet started their spiritual journey back to the Father.

Battles and interferences from the force of darkness.
Once they evil spirit see the light of Holy Spirit, they do everything possible to cause darkness and calamities. They only succeed when people allow them.

God’s plan takes precedence over man’s desire.
The fact that God can do all things does not mean that God is no longer careful. He follows due process. For example, people should not expect God to go about striking down their enemies, simply become you pray against your enemies. When David prayed for protection, God did not kill Saul, but He protected David from all the attacks from Saul.

God’s ways are different from the ways of man, and His thoughts are different from our ways.
The fact that things did not work out the way people expected, does not mean that God has not answered your prayer. His ways are different from our ways. He works in ways that we may not understand.

Wrong interpretations
At times, there are differences in interpretation from the actual meanings of prophecies. All the same, all things work unto good for the righteous ones.

Misdirected prayer
For example, a youth is praying for employment whereas he has no skill. He should first pray for food training, before praying for employment.

Praying amiss, when people are not serious enough, not well composed during prayer.
For example, when people are told to fast and pray, you would observe that many of the workers fast but do not pray. Nobody would reply a very big envelope which has no letter inside.

Man-made sufferings
At times, people create problems and turn round to pray for solution. For instance, people pray against flood, but are busy everyday pouring refuse into the waterways. At times, the best way to solve a problem is to allow people suffer what they have caused. The suffering serves as deterrent.