Answered Prayers! Have you ever wondered why God answers some prayers, but doesn’t seem to answer others? Perhaps you’ve struggled, trying to understand when or how God will answer your prayers. Here’s a true story that helps answer these questions and will help us discover some secrets to answered prayers.

It was a cold, spring night.  I was 19 years old and dressed in my very best clothes to give a speech called The Christian Meaning of Success to a large, middle-aged group at church.  Although my speech wasn’t funny and held no earth-shattering revelations, many people in the audience went out of their way to make me feel special by telling me I did a great job, to the point where I secretly puffed with pride.

When the church meeting ended, it was dark outside, and an unrelenting rainstorm pounded the church grounds.  I ran through the rain to my dad’s pickup and watched the wipers go back and forth while the windshield slowly defogged.  Like those wipers, my mind raced back and forth, back and forth – as I struggled between worshipping God or becoming filled with myself.  It was like a tug of war, and it was so real, so powerful and overwhelming that I prayed out loud, “Dear God help me worship you only. I’m sorry for being filled with pride.  Please humble me, but please don’t hurt me.”

This wrestling continued in my mind as I drove down Normandale Boulevard.  It was a like a fight going on in my head. God, me, God, me, God, me, as the rain continued to pound, and the wipers flew back and forth, back and forth at the same rhythm as my thoughts. The road ahead was closed due to construction and I had to take a detour onto a winding, pot-hole-filled dirt road that made the truck feel like it was a dune buggy.  Because rain filled the potholes, the pickup lumbered slowly ahead as I struggled to avoid bottoming out in deep ditches.  Meanwhile, just to my left, over a small hill that was no larger than a three-foot-high mound of dirt, was the newly paved road that was not yet open for traffic.

Because there were no other cars around, I decided to drive over the hill in order to drive on the paved road, even though I knew it was illegal to do so.  I gunned the pickup through the mud and over the hill, but as the front tires crested the little hill, I could see the hill drop off to nothing and my truck slammed down into the middle of the hill, like a teeter-totter with all 4 wheels dangling in the air.  Oh my, was I in trouble!

I got out and stepped into the sloppy mud as the rain soaked through my clothes.  My dad kept sandbags in the back of his truck so I piled them all the way into the far back of the pickup bed, put the truck in reverse and bounced up and down on the rear bumper as hard as I could to try to get the tires to grab the earth, but the pickup did not move an inch.

Just then, God sent an angel, disguised as a college kid, driving an old car so I flagged him down, pulled out some ropes that we carried in the pickup and asked if he could pull me off the hill.  My joy at getting help so quickly dashed as his car fish-tailed back and forth while my truck did not even budge.  And then, at least in my mind, the situation got worse when he said, “Why don’t you just call the cops or get a tow truck?”  I had no money for a tow truck and because I was clearly and deliberately doing something illegal, I got scared and literally started to cry right in front of this guy. I think he must’ve thought I was a nut case.

Here I was, literally moments after Satan tried to entice me by my own alleged grandeur, sopping wet, covered with mud, stuck like chuck in the middle of doing something illegal and crying in front of a stranger who was only a few years older than me.  I think the only words I said at that point, were “Oh God, Oh God.”  I know for sure, that I never cried out for me to save myself.

And then, after just a few seconds of groveling, God sent another angel, this time camouflaged as a crabby old man in a four-wheel drive truck who came inching up the pothole filled road. Still in tears and covered with mud, I ran in front of his truck, waving my arms to stop him. He angrily rolled down his window and screamed at me to get out of his way – but I did not budge. Instead, I begged for his help.  He turned his tires to drive around me, but I moved to continue to stand in front of his truck, and then I knelt down on the muddy wet road, and begged even more as I said, “Please mister, please help me.  I already have the ropes out, and your truck can pull me off this hill.  Please, it will only take you a few seconds.”

Finally, after kneeling in front of his truck for what seemed like forever, begging while the college kid watched, the man agreed to help me as he muttered out loud, “Stupid kid. Stupid, stupid, dumb kid.”  Within seconds he pulled my truck off the hill while I thanked both him and the college kid over and over again.  All the while I praised God for his saving miracle, as the tears continued to stream down my rain-soaked face.

A mile later, I pulled my dad’s pickup into the garage, turned on the lights, and crawled under the truck to inspect the damage – but there wasn’t even a scratch.

So here I am today, more than 40 years later, and tears still come to my eyes as I recall this story.  Even amidst my struggle of God, me, God, me, God, me – I can see in retrospect how I wrongly chose me when I decided to make that illegal turn. Yet God in his grace answered my prayer so gently and so powerfully. God humbled me but did not hurt me. He took care of business and answered my prayers right away – by showing me that I am little, flawed, muddy, soaking wet, cold and in desperate need of him. Yes, God is God and I am not.

He answered my prayers because my heartfelt prayer was to do God’s will.  He knew I was struggling and asking him for strength to do his will. He knew that my prayer was a plea to help me to make him first in my life.  This is the kind of prayer that God always answers – if and when we are truly open and ready to make him our God.

Isn’t this what Jesus prayed when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane?  He prayed, “Not my will, but your will be done” (Mark 14:36). Not me, but you. Not me, but you – just like those windshield wipers going back and forth.  Not me, but you as the soldiers lined up outside Jerusalem’s mighty gates.  Not me, but you, as the soldiers marched down the hill in military fashion and came directly toward him.  Not me but you, as the disciples slept. Not me but you, as the High Priests falsely accused him.  Not me but you, as the Roman Soldiers whipped and tortured him.  Not me but you, as they ridiculed and killed him.  Not me but you – it was the prayer of Jesus, and with perfect hindsight we can see that God did indeed answer his prayer.

That’s because when we pray, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) – we may not see or even understand how God is answering our prayers.  But we can know – no matter what happens – that God answers our prayer whenever we truly desire to put him first.  Not me but you.  Not me but you.  Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

My friends, we know how Satan loves to lie to us whenever and however he can.  One of his favorite ways is to tell us that our prayers are a waste of time, or by encouraging us to pray for the things we want – so our own will is done.  That’s why we’d like to encourage you, by giving you the free audiobook or PDF of our book Why Wait to Be Happy? where you will discover God’s solutions for defeating Satan’s lies.  Click the button below and get started today.