Tag Archives: Seek God

Does God Answer all “In Jesus Name” Prayers?

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A few years ago, I met someone who candidly shared that he had lost his faith in God after his mother passed away. He described how he had prayed earnestly, pleaded with God, and truly believed she would be healed. But when she died, he could no longer see the purpose in believing in a God who, in his eyes, hadn’t answered.

After our wedding, I moved to Seattle to join my husband, who was already living there.
We had the privilege of getting to know a dear pastor—a kind and humble man we were introduced to through a mutual friend.

He and his wife welcomed us with such grace, and we quickly got to know and love them, their family, and the congregation they faithfully led.
Not long after we joined the church, he was diagnosed with leukemia. In his 60s.

We prayed.
Oh, how we prayed.

Tearful, fervent prayers. Prayers in Jesus’ name.
Prayers from a church that believed God is able to heal any illness.
Prayers from friends who couldn’t imagine this story ending in death.

But a year later—he was gone.

Those are the prayers that sit heavy in the soul.
The ones whispered through tears in the dead of night.
At hospital bedsides. In war zones. Dorm rooms. Decision tables.
The ones we end the “right” way:
“In Jesus’ name, amen.”

And yet—
some of them are met with silence.
Doors stay shut.
Suffering lingers.
The miracle doesn’t come.
A loved one dies.

If you’ve been there too—
you’re not alone. And you’re not doing it wrong.

I’m sharing what I’ve come to understand about what it truly means to pray in Jesus’ name, and why, even then, the answers we receive may not look the way we hoped or imagined.

The Misunderstood Promise

Jesus says in John 14:13–14:

“And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”

This verse has been quoted in revival meetings, and quiet morning devotions. But it’s often misunderstood.

To ask in Jesus’ name is not just a magic phrase that flips a switch—it means:

  • Asking under His authority, like an ambassador.
  • Asking in alignment with His will, not just our desires.
  • Asking with the goal of glorifying the Father, not gratifying the flesh.

It’s not a blank check. It’s an invitation to pray like Jesus would pray.

And here’s the hard truth:
Even when you do that—sometimes, the answer might still be NO.

Let’s look in the Bible, when the faithful heard “NO”

This is not new. Scripture is full of God-loving, Spirit-led people who prayed with pure hearts—and didn’t get what they asked for.

✦ Moses

He led God’s people through the wilderness. He talked with God face to face. And he prayed:

“Let me go over and see the good land…” (Deut 3:25)

God said NO.

Moses didn’t get to enter the Promised Land. His journey ended on a mountain—overlooking it, but not stepping foot.
Faithful—but denied.

✦ David

He fasted, prayed, and wept for his dying son—the child born from his failure, yes, but still his beloved son.

“Who knows? The Lord may be gracious…” (2 Sam 12:22)

The child still died.

David worshipped anyway. Not because he got what he asked for, but because he trusted who God was, even in the heartbreak.

✦ Paul

He begged God three times to remove the “thorn in his flesh”—something so agonizing that scholars still debate what it was.

“Three times I pleaded…” (2 Corinthians 12:8)

God said no.

Instead, He gave something better than healing:

“My grace is sufficient for you.”

✦ Even Jesus

In Gethsemane, our Savior—the very Son of God—cried out:

“Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me…” (Luke 22:42)

But He added,

“Yet not My will, but Yours be done.”

And the cup was not taken away.
Jesus drank every bitter drop. For you and I!

And few moments in Scripture illustrate this better than the man with leprosy in Luke 5:12. He approached Jesus with confidence in His power but reverence for His will:

“Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”

He didn’t plead. He didn’t demand. He simply believed—and submitted.

If I’m honest, I probably wouldn’t have done that.
If I were in his place—face to face with the King of Kings—I might’ve listed a hundred things. “Heal me. Fix this. Change that. Do it now.”
But this man said only, “If You are willing.”

That kind of faith doesn’t try to control the outcome.
It trusts the One who holds it.

And Jesus responded not only with compassion but with power:

“I am willing. Be clean.”

This is what praying in Jesus’ name really looks like—a posture of trust over control, surrender over strategy.

What if the “No” is the mercy?

Sometimes we ask for things that would wreck us if God said yes. Other times, we’re asking for something good—but God is doing something greater. Something we won’t understand until we look back from eternity.

What if the “unanswered prayer” was the answer?

What if God’s “no” is not rejection—but redirection?
Not punishment—but preparation? Growing & molding us?

When we don’t understand—He still is good!

This I know too well:

GOD is not cruel.

“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.” – Psalm 103:8

He is not ignoring you.

“The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are attentive to their cry.” – Psalm 34:15

He has not forgotten your tears or dismissed your faith.

“You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?” – Psalm 56:8

He sees what you cannot.

“His understanding no one can fathom.” – Isaiah 40:28

And when He delays, denies, or remains silent—

“Jesus replied, ‘You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’” – John 13:7

It is never because He doesn’t care.

“Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” – 1 Peter 5:7

It’s because His plans are higher, deeper, and more redemptive than we can imagine.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways… as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways.” – Isaiah 55:8–9

God’s plans for us are good.

“For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.” – Jeremiah 29:11

Romans 8:28 brings it all together.

It says:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” – Romans 8:28

Keep praying, even if the answer doesn’t come

So what do we do?

We pray.
We ask boldly.
We weep honestly.
We submit fully.

And when the heavens seem quiet, we cling to the truth that God is still at work.

He is not a vending machine—He is a Father.
Wise. Just.
And He sees beyond your asking, into your becoming.

He knows what you truly need, even when you don’t.

So keep praying.
Not to bend His will to yours,
but to align your heart with His.

Not to get everything you desire,
but to grow into who He created you to be.

This is the power of prayer in Jesus’ name.
Not a guarantee of outcomes —but an invitation to intimacy, to trust, to transformation.

“If My People who are Called by My Name” ~ 2 Chronicles 7:14

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“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” ~ 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV)

Like the rest of the world, everyone is grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, known as the COVID-19 that originated in Wuhan, China and was first reported in December 2019. The United States declared a National Emergency on March 1, 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. As I type, which is changing quickly, over 350k cases have been confirmed globally and more than 15k people have lost their lives worldwide. Many countries have implemented some type of partial or full lockdown in efforts to curb the spread of this virus. The world is in distress!

World Map

The puzzling piece about this coronavirus, according to health officials and epidemic experts, is that no one is immune to this disease. The rich, poor, strong, weak, young, old, powerful or struggling, anyone can get infected by this virus. This is not a disease for just developing countries as we are often used to; world’s economy is projected to be severely impacted. Our daily lives’ routines as we know it have been disrupted or brought to a screeching halt, indefinitely. In this trying time, where many people are panicking, grocery store shelves are out of basic items like toilet paper that many wonder how this relates to the outbreak, I wanted to share this message with my readers.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY HOPE!

There is hope that is NOT based on the findings of the scientists or medical communities around the world working around the clock to find the vaccine/cure for this virus; the hope that is NOT anchored in powerful leaders or nations that have always been regarded as having all solutions to the world’s economical and social problems. The hope I share is NOT endorsed by billionaires who have made some to believe that money can do about anything.

Our hope is in GOD alone. He is the same as He was yesterday, today and always!

Before I go farther, I want to first address a misconception that I have heard regarding trials and tribulations of various kinds that people go through. Couple years back, I had an interesting conversation with someone who told me that he stopped believing in God after his mother died of cancer! When things don’t pan out the way we prayed or wanted, we sometime resort to bitterness or denying God’s Power. We blame God by saying that if He was a loving God, that wars, genocides and tragedies would not happen.

My question is, how often do we ever pause to wonder if God might see things differently? And where do we read that God’s answer will be predictable. Of course from Jeremiah, we know that God’s plans are for prosperity, not to harm us. But if we trust that the Lord knows what’s best for us, does it ever occur to us to ask Him what He thinks about our needs/requests? Do we ever pray that His will, not ours, be done? Jesus prayed this way!

Different times call for different measures. Here is what I wanted to share with you today: 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV). But let me take a step back a little bit. You may remember the Bible story about the king Solomon, the son of King David; he was chosen by God to build God’s Temple. Solomon has been described by the Bible and scholars as one of the wisest and richest king of his generation. And he was truly generous with labor, material and everything that went into building & polishing God’s Temple; all the construction & furnishing work took about 7.5 years to complete (Read 2 Chronicles 2 through chapter 7).

After completion, and the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord has been brought into the Temple, Solomon gave a speech, a prayer of dedication, blessed the assembly, and dedicated the Temple. Although he understood that even the heavens couldn’t contain God, much less the Temple built by human hands, but he believed that God promised that His Presence will be present in this Temple.

I personally love the honest prayer that Solomon prayed as he dedicated the Temple; he prayed to God in a way he could predict that people were going to mess up in life; he asked that: if anyone sins against his neighbor, or God’s people are defeated in war, or the heavens are shut & there is no rain because of people’s wickedness, or if there is a famine/pestilence in the land, or foreigners in need, if any of them prays toward this Temple, that God will hear the pleas they make.

“12 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. 13 When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, 14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:12-14 (NKJV).

Over and over again, we see in the Bible where God’s people rebelled against Him, and He would allow/let them go through things to learn to keep His commandments. And we do see it in this conversation between God and Solomon. Surprisingly, the COVID-19 is considered a pestilence. I am by no means implying that God brought this calamity upon the nations. But I know and believe that He is able to stop it from happening. Subsequently, I believe that there’s a reason for this. And if we truly understand that our existence and breath we take is in the hands of God, we’d pause and wonder if there is something at stake that we need to learn here.

I have read multiple internet articles that have called for prayers worldwide; this is very encouraging! However, I personally believe that if we are only praying for this coronavirus to end, we should pause and ask God if there was more to it that He wanted us to learn from this experience than just the pestilence happening & ruining people’s lives. You see, when God told Solomon about that calamity that may be brought upon His people because of rebellion, in verse 13, He didn’t ask them to pray for the end to the pestilence/locusts/drought. God mentioned not one, but 4 things that His people should do in this scenario:

  1. Humble ourselves
  2. Pray
  3. Seek God’s Face
  4. Turn from our wicked ways

And after then, He will hear from Heaven, forgive our sins, and heal our countries/land. Just think of it like this: as a parent, let’s assume that you are disciplining one of your children. Rather than them cleaning their room as you instructed, or doing a chore you know would build their character in a long run, they are just sitting on the couch, playing a video game or watching noneducational YouTube videos.

Then you decide to teach them a lesson, and you take the iPad or TV privileges away. To protest your decision, they cry and call you a bad & selfish parent. As a parent, do you immediately reverse your punishment because they cried, and called you a bad parent or really begged you? Or you let them cry, and eventually do the chore you asked in the first place? And then, only after then, they get the iPad/TV privileges back! Isn’t how parents do it? Isn’t this how most of us were raised by loving parents?

Likewise, I personally believe that if we’re only asking God to end the pandemic because it’s inconvenient to us, and not repenting/seeking God’s Face, we are truly missing the point!

We see some examples of people in the Bible who were told about an impending destruction if they didn’t repent of their sins. One example is recorded in the book of Jonah about the great Assyrian Empire. Its capital city, Nineveh (today in Mosul, Northern Iraq), was a flourishing city, a trade center, and later became one of the largest and most affluent cities in antiquity. Nahum 3 describes how horrible the people of Nineveh were: bloody city, full of lies and robbery and so many more. Jonah has been sent by God to warn them they’d perish if they didn’t repent.

6 Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. 7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying: let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water.

8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish? 10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it. Jonah 3: 6 -10 (NKJV)

Will you join me in seeking God, praying, repenting our sins, and humbling ourselves before God? May be, like the King of Nineveh, God will hear our prayers, forgive our sins and put an end to this pandemic? Again, I am not saying that God sent this outbreak; but I know without a doubt that He’s capable of ending it. And I know He will, in His due time! And He is Glorified, now and always!! But until then, you and I have a part to play! Do you believe it?