“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." 1 John 5:14
Have you ever wondered if God was there? Maybe you’ve been praying and it seems that God must be on vacation or taking a nap or something. He sure seems to be missing. Maybe He is too busy or just doesn’t care about your silly little problems. Maybe you try to give God the benefit of the doubt and say He must have a plan or something.
I was reading in John 8 about the teachers of the law and the Pharisees who brought in a woman caught in adultery to Jesus. They wanted to test and trick Him into agreeing to stone her. If we could get into her head I can hear her praying, “Teacher, teacher help me, save me.” What does Jesus do? He just sits there. He doesn’t seem to hear or care, and just draws in the sand with His finger. She prays harder, “Don’t you see what’s happening? You can call up a wind and blow them out of town or turn them into cockroaches.”
Then He straightened up. At last, she thinks. What does He do? He gives anyone without sin permission to throw the first stone and then sat back down to play in the sand. She is losing hope, it will be over soon and Jesus isn’t paying attention.
What she doesn’t realize is, if Jesus had done what she thought she wanted, these men could have returned and found her when Jesus wasn’t around and killed her. Now they’d have to claim before God that they are sinless, which they wouldn’t dare do, before they could touch her. He has given her much more than she prayed for.
Bottom line, God is not absent. He might be drawing in the sand, but He’s listening to everything. The answer may not be exactly what we thought we were praying for, but with trust and faith there will be an answer, the right answer.