"Dead" Prayers

Many times when we get cardboard boxes in the mail, I'll tear off the tape and any stickers and I'll flatten out the boxes.  I will take the flattened out boxes to the garden and lay them down on the ground where they serve as a barrier to weeds growing up.  Over time, with sun and rain, they deteriorate and become part of the garden soil.

The other day when walking out to pick some fresh lettuce for a salad for supper, my eye caught something lying atop one of the cardboard boxes - a dead Praying Mantis.

A Dead Prayer

This Praying Mantis was huge and on his back and very dead.  I began wondering what happened to the old boy.  He didn't seem to have been killed by a predator. He was a fat dude, so he was in good health.  He was quite large. so maybe he died of old age.  Old age, in this case, would be 14 months as that is the top end of their lifespan according to what Google told me.

Seeing a dead Praying Mantis is not a normal sight and as I picked lettuce, my mind began to dwell on the dead praying mantis and think of what causes our (my) prayers to die - or to go unanswered.  Have you ever prayed for something for a very long time and it feels like your prayers have died?  I have. What causes prayers to die?  Or seem to die?  Good questions.

I went to THIS LINK as well as some others to find some answers in this non-exhaustive list:

1. Wrong Motives.  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. James 4:3  Maybe our motives involve greed or selfishness, or revenge.  The Bible says God will not honor those prayers.

2. Timing.  Sometimes no answer may be a delayed answer.  God's timing is best.

3  Not God's will.  Maybe what we are praying for is not what's best for us.  God knows best.  In fact, Garth Brooks used to sing a song called, "Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers." We must trust Him and be patient.

4. Repetitive and Not heart-felt prayer.  And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. Matthew 6:7 Sometimes in prayer, my mind wanders.  Sometimes I will go on "auto-pilot" and merely say words similar to the way as school kids we'd recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  Our heart isn't in it and the Bible says God will not hear these prayers.

5. Unconfessed sin.  Behold, the LORD'S hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear.  But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. Isaiah 59:1  Maybe our prayers feel like they are dead because we need to get things right with God and/or our fellow man.

I don't want to end up like the dead praying mantis in the garden, nor do I want my prayers to end up like him.