Heard

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit--fruit that will last--and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. (John 15:16)

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)

He fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." (Matthew 26:39)

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. (Hebrews 5:7)

So why don't we receive everything we ask for? Even Jesus' cup was not taken from him. But his prayer was answered, after all. He prayed that his father's will would be done, and it was. On an earth that had been sold into the hand of Satan - God's will was done, and the enemy defeated on his own territory.

Jesus, praying, bowed his will to God, and God's will was done through him, on earth just as it is in heaven.

This is our great privilege - not to beg God, nor to conjure his power on our own behalf, but to bend ourselves to him, and allow his will to be done for us, and through us, for our own broken world. This is the way that God's will and his love make their way into a world like ours. This is the way that the Master we have chosen regains the right to work for us and in us and through us. He longs to give good, and our bent will is the means through which he may reach us, and through us, the world we belong to.