It's one of the most frustrating things about being a faithful person. How do you maintain your faith and your confidence in God, when bad things happen to good people or when you don't get what you ask for?
Have you ever heard of the saying, "you do not have, because you do not ask," or "ask and you shall receive?" They stem from the Book of James, who is known as Jesus' brother. He was known as a prayerful man with knees as tough and calloused as camel's feet (from all that ceaseless praying).
The blog post that made me think about this again went on to elaborate about the topic to say:
"I’ve heard people quote that first sentence a million times to say that all you have to do is ask, and if you ask in faith then God will answer. (I notice that people usually quote it from the King James: “ye have not because ye ask not.”) The idea seems to be that God is just waiting around to bless us if we’ll only make a peep.
But what about the second sentence? “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” Passions basically equates to sinful desires. So to that point, what if we live our lives out of sync with our prayers? What if we pray for things to gratify or satisfy our lusts or our anger or our fears or (insert your particular issue)? James seems to say that God won’t give us what we ask."
I think another long heard saying applies here as well, - be careful what you pray for.
