E68 Why Your Prayers Aren’t Being Answered: 7 Common Prayer Mistakes

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Jen (00:00)
How many times Have you gone to God about something? And then walked away wondering, is he actually listening to me? I know I’m not the only one who has been discouraged about whether or not God was actually paying attention to my prayer. When you don’t see results, it really feels like God is either not bothering to listen or he just doesn’t care, right? Today, let me give you some hope. God is definitely listening. It is possible that what’s really happening is that you didn’t approach him in a way that he could respond to.

So what do I mean by that? In this discussion today, I’m gonna cover some common mistakes that people make in prayer and I’m gonna hone in on some of the practical reasons your prayers may not be getting answered. Let’s dive in.

Hey friend, welcome back to the show into the depths. I can’t wait to get going on today’s just topic. We have been in a series recently on prayer, which is one of my favorite things to talk about. And I’ve been wanting to cover this topic for a long time, but it’s taken me little bit of of time to like get my thoughts organized and like figure out how I wanted to approach the topic. I have learned so much about prayer over the years. I have had so many amazing

Encounters with the Lord over all the things that He’s taught me. But a year and a half ago, He really started nudging me to become an intercessor coach, and I was like, I don’t even think that’s a thing, so I didn’t know what it was. I tried to look it up, I did some internet searches, I couldn’t find anything, and I was like, Okay, Lord, I don’t really know what you’re asking of me here, but the nudge wouldn’t go away, I I really have had a passion to train intercessors who, like me, had no

idea what that role was supposed to look like, didn’t know what it is, just felt a nudge from the Lord that hey I I’ve called you to be an intercessor. And so I was like I can’t be the only one who doesn’t know where to go with this. And so I started doing some market research around the idea of

teaching and training intercessors and one of my pastor friends actually encouraged me not just to stick to intercessors specifically but just in general provide opportunities for ordinary believers to learn how to pray and I thought maybe I could do that you know and I had already felt god

wanting me to you know be a little bit more broad and inclusive

And then since then I’ve actually had a couple people mention to me that they would love to have the opportunity to learn some of the things that I’ve learned and that they would be willing to pay for my knowledge and experience. And I was like, okay, I guess I better get moving on this.

So this past year, 2026, I that’s what I’ve been doing, right? I developed a group coaching program January, February, March. I led nine women through this program I developed and

I got some amazing feedback and I really enjoyed it. And so I thought, okay, I guess I can really do this. There are people there are some people that are really hungry to learn more about prayer that really want to strengthen and deepen their prayer life. And so I actually took that coaching program and I turned it into a digital course that you could just watch at your own pace. It’s finally live, it’s finally available for purchase. I’m super excited because it’s already

Helped so many women, and I just can’t wait to see what God does. So it’s called Teach Us to Pray: Seven Keys to Transform Your Prayer Life. And I just have to point out that I couldn’t have done this without my friends and my partners at the Noble Marriage.

Travis and Adele are just such wonderful people, and they’re really helping people get freedom and healing in so many different ways. And recently I’ve actually begun helping them with some coaching and some administrative projects and some event planning. They’ve been invited to speak at some places, and so we’re developing a program for them around that. And here in a few days, I’m actually gonna be leading their new community called the Noble Sisterhood. I’m super excited about this. It’s based on the Bible study that Adele wrote.

called the Noble Wife and it’s about learning to be a a godly wife and it’s just really really well done. So you can go to the Noblemarriage.com for more information about that. And I will also put my link in the show notes.

So besides the digital course that I just created and the Noble Sisterhood that I’m going to be starting here pretty soon, I am actually also starting to offer some one-on-one coaching for women. The spots are really limited right now because I am still working a full-time job. So there’s only a few openings right now, but things will shift but towards the end of the year and I can really open that up for some women who would love some extra mentoring. So anyhow.

Now, let me let me get in today’s topic, We are discussing the common reasons that your prayers may not be getting answered. here is mistake number one that I’ve seen.

And just I want to point out I have done all of these, all right? So I I have experienced all of these. I am the first one to admit I have not done this well. All right. Number one, you pray only your opinion and your desires. what do I mean? Focus on your way and your will instead of God’s way. And you you forget to ask him what he wants for the situation, right? You have your perspective, but we have to remember that God actually has a perspective too.

And we need to ask him what it is, right? We need to tune into that. We need to understand what is on his heart for the situation and not just be consumed with what we want to happen. I get a lot of requests from friends, and they they give me a specific thing that they want me to pray. And often God will change that. And I don’t go back and tell them, hey, I didn’t pray your way. Doesn’t really matter. What matters is every time you want to pray for something or a person approaches you about a prayer request.

The first thing that you want to do is ask God, what is on your heart for this situation? What do you want me to pray? Okay? Everyone else’s opinion needs to get set aside so you can focus on what is God’s will. So here’s an example. I actually had a friend reach out to me a while back.

She something had happened with her mom. She was really worried about it. She was explaining the story to me. She really wanted me to help her pray, you know, join her in prayer. And before she had even finished explaining the situation and all the troubles her mom was going through, I heard God say to me, Don’t you do that. And I had to like pause for a second because like he’s talking to me, she’s talking to me. And so I’m a little confused for a minute. I said, Wait, God, why are you interrupting? Like I’m trying to listen to my friend. She’s really worried about.

About

her mom. And I had to pull back for a second and go, okay, what my friend was asking me to pray was actually not God’s will. And he wanted to knit that in the bud right away. So I let my friend finish talking. I hung up the phone and I immediately went to the Lord and I said, Okay, explain what is going on and what do you want from me? And he explained to me why he wanted me to pray totally opposite of what my friend had wanted. And I was a little uncomfortable with that. I was like, Lord, I want to support my friend.

Friend, but that’s not the point. The point is if we want to see answers and we want God’s absolute best, we actually have to seek what’s on his heart and not our own agenda, I will never forget this experience. when I was living in Alaska, God brought me a couple really beautiful mentors around the area of intercession. And I got invited to this prayer meeting. I think there was about 10 of us, maybe 12. I really didn’t know these people very well, but I was so hungry to learn

Prayer in intercession, I was just soaking it up. Every meeting I could I could get into, I was there because I wanted to learn. And I’ll never forget this mentor invited me to pray. And I was super nervous because I had never I didn’t at that point in my life really hardly ever pray around strangers, but I was like, I’m gonna be brave, I’m gonna do this. And I started praying over the situation, and I said, Lord, if it’s your will, this, but then if it’s not your

your will and my mentor immediately stopped me and she said stop right there and I was I was like what what did I do and she said don’t say if it’s your will ask him what’s his will what does he want you to pray and I was you know I was really embarrassed I was in a group of strangers but it I it took me a minute I was like okay let me calm down let me I mean I might as well just ask him and try it why not try it okay at that point in my life I don’t even think I could count

On one hand, how many times God had immediately answered a question for me? So I was very nervous. All these people are watching me, and thankfully the woman next to me was like, Don’t worry, she does this to everyone. So it made me feel not quiet. It was embarrassed. But I learned a really valuable lesson because here’s the thing: as soon as I asked him, Lord, what do you want me to pray? What is your exact will over the situation? He dropped it in my spirit. And I knew exactly what he wanted. And I from that day forward, I have

stopped saying if it’s your will. And I would encourage you to do the same thing. Don’t say if. Go ask him what is your will for this situation so that I can pray in alignment with what your heart is, God. And so that is just something to think about in the way that you’re praying. Are you focusing on only what you want, your opinion and your desires, or are you consistently asking God, what does he want for the situation? So that is mistake number one. The second mistake that

I feel is common is that you’re always talking about yourself. We don’t mean to do this, we really don’t. But we go to him rehashing over and over and over all of our problems, all of our feelings, all of our pain, all of our suffering. And the thing is, God is not a genie, right? We don’t want to only go to him when we want him to fix something.

Think about this. What do you have to offer back to him, What can you give back to him? If you were in a relationship with a friend or a family member and they were constantly asking you for stuff, wouldn’t you get tired of talking with them? Right? Relationship is give and take, back and forth, You can’t always talk about yourself. You gotta talk about him. You gotta talk about what he thinks, what he feels, right? Where can you give

him more reverence where can you give him more worship more gratitude those are just a few things I’ll never forget this one time I was really upset about something I honestly don’t remember what it was but I I just feel like

I don’t want to be gross, but I was like, I was really just vomiting my feelings all over him. Okay. And I just give that to you as a real image to really think about it. And God was he waited for me to finish. And I he when I finally stopped talking, he said, I can’t talk to you about this right now. You’re too emotional to hear what I have to say. And I was really embarrassed. It took me a minute to recover and I said, my gosh, Lord, you’re so right. I have been doing all the talking. I have been totally focused on myself.

And he he is so such a loving God. You know, he just gave me a few minutes. He helped me calm down. I really felt his comfort. But the thing is, I couldn’t be objective in the moment. I even if I had asked him what to pray, I wouldn’t have been able to hear it because I was too upset. So don’t let your feelings take control of the prayer,

A lot of times we look at prayer as a tool to change our situation. We want to be delivered. But here’s the thing: what if God wants to use this situation, or what if God wants to use our prayers to actually change us, right? So be careful not to be a little bit too consumed with yourself. And I know you’re not doing it on purpose, okay? This is not about condemnation. I’m just giving you some things to think about based on what I’ve seen. Another way that people make a mistake is that they actually haven’t learned how to hear God’s voice,

You have to tune your ears to hear God speak. If you don’t know his voice, you’re not going to be able to hear his answers.

Or there’s also the idea that maybe you’re not actually listening. So think about that too. But sometimes God answers us, but we didn’t actually notice it, okay? He might have said yes, no, or not yet. I mean, who knows? But if we’re not paying attention, if we’re not giving him space to talk to us, how are we gonna know? Right? So how often do you practice hearing God speak? How often are you doing that?

Remember, learning something new always takes time and it always takes practice. When you went to kindergarten, you first started to learn the alphabet, right? You didn’t know how to write a graduate paper. Learning is progressive. We always start at the bottom and work our way up, That’s maturity. think about how when you started off.

riding your bike or driving a car, right? You didn’t just suddenly know how to do it. You had to keep going there. You had to keep practicing. You had to keep doing it. And then over time, and especially after you’ve done it for a couple years, it just comes a second nature, right? You don’t even have to think through it. You just automatically do it. So the steps in the beginning can feel a little clunky and it can you like you really have to think through each step. But the thing is when you’re learn to hear the

Lord speak and you learn how to pray effectively and powerfully, it’s gonna come naturally to you. You’re not gonna have to try so hard. you’ve got to wait on him. You’ve got to give him space to speak. We tend to not like the quiet, right? The Bible tells us to be still and know that he is God, and that is hard for us, We get restless, we get impatient, we look at our to-do list and we’re like, Lord, I gotta do all this stuff for the family. You need to give me some answers. You got one minute, and he doesn’t.

Really work like that. So mistake number three on my list is not learning how to hear God speak. You’ve got to do that. Give him space and practice.

One thing that I’ve always loved, and this was especially important to me when I was pregnant with my two children, is the idea that babies can actually hear when they’re still in the womb, They can hear their parents’ voices and they get tuned to that. Like they learn it right away because that’s a voice that they hear the most.

And so, because of that constant proximity, and because of the fact that the you know the parents are constantly talking, the child learns really quickly. when the infant is born, just hearing the sound of a parent’s voice, they’ll turn towards that, right? Because there’s that connection. And so that’s a similar way of what we want to be with the Lord, Invite him to teach you, to hear him speak, to tune your ears to his voice so that you can learn it. Jesus said in the book of John.

On my sheep hear my voice, okay? Hear me. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are already capable of hearing God speak. You’re already capable. You may have some blocks in place based on some limiting beliefs and some lies and deception from the enemy. So if you do struggle in this area, I would delve into where I might have a lie or a limiting belief. But the thing is, you already have the capability of hearing God, you just have to develop your listening skills, okay? So another area that

Is a common mistake that I’ve seen and done is your baggage is gonna get in the way, And I’m not just talking about unconfessed sin.

You have personal biases. You have limiting beliefs. You are sometimes deceived by the enemy. What about unhealed wounds, praying from a place of pain. That’s gonna skew your perspective, We have to address the lies that we have around who God is, any sort of wrong worldview that we have about life itself, or you know, maybe God Himself, because sometimes our well, a lot of times,

our our view of our earthly parents especially our father and so if he didn’t do a great job raising us that can skew our perspective on who God is and that affects the way we pray to him right let me give you a couple examples like I grew up in church and I was very much a a good girl I had to check off all the boxes I really had become a Pharisee I had a very religious mindset everything was about performance and rules I thought

Thought being a Christian was, you know, trying to please and obey the Lord all the time. that skewed the way I would pray. Like, for example, I would pray for people, not that God would give grace and mercy, but I would pray that God would punish them for the things they did wrong. And that’s not God’s heart, right? But I was really coming at it from a place of judgment and criticism because I didn’t like those people’s behavior. And so I just I hate sharing that, but that was the truth, truth of where I was at.

One point in my walk with the Lord. Thankfully, much better in that area. I have worked very hard on that. But anyways, another example. Okay. about I don’t know, 12 years ago when Tim and I were having a a lot of problems in our our marriage, I kept praying, God, fix my husband, fix my marriage, do it quickly. But God was so much more interested in growing my character, my endurance.

Teaching me how to worship, right? Just me and him. He wanted to develop my prayer skills. So guess what?

It was nine months of a lot of pain and discomfort because God refused to answer my prayers in this area. My motive was all about blame and self-pity. I was coming at it from a skewed perspective, and I didn’t have a full picture of what was really going on, and I definitely didn’t understand God’s heart for the situation. All I saw was my pain and discomfort, and I wanted it fixed. So your

Baggage

is going to get in the way. It’s going to hinder your prayers. And so you need to seek healing. You need to seek personal growth. And that is a journey that doesn’t stop. Honestly, God is all about teaching us to be more like Jesus. And I don’t know that we ever reach the point, While we’re on this earth. So, anyhow,

Take your junk, your weaknesses, your flaws. Take that seriously. Take that to the Lord. Get some healing. Okay. Another area where people struggle is you’re being double-minded. And this is from the scripture. It’s the idea of being wishy-washy. my gosh, I used to do this all the time. It would drive my husband crazy. I was like, I think God is saying this. no, I think we better do this. And you keep going back and forth. Back and forth.

And fourth, and you think you figured it out, and then you doubt again, and then you think you figured it out and then you worry again. Double-mindedness is not cool. And I’m gonna give you a couple scriptures. James 1, verse 8 says, A double-minded person is unstable. First Kings 18:21 says, How long are you gonna hesitate between two opinions? That’s what God said to his children. Psalm 119, verse 113, it says, Don’t associate with those who keep change.

changing their minds. Okay? God is serious about double-mindedness. He doesn’t like it. All that really matters in the situation, what did God say?

And sometimes we don’t know what God said because we’re not listening or we haven’t tuned our ears to hear it, okay? But, and this is why I encourage people to always write it down when God speaks to you. I I try to do this in my journal, constantly write it down and then highlight it so I can see all the times God spoke to me through the years. But, anyways, let’s remember, okay, back in the garden when the snake was tempting Eve, What was the trickery that he used? He used the phrase, did God

Really say, Did God really say? Okay, here’s the thing. If you know without a shadow of a doubt what exactly God said, you’re not going to be double-minded. You’re not going to be wishy-washy. So you need to really hone in on the truth, the promise, the actual thing that God is saying. God doesn’t hide. He is going to give you a clear answer. He might wait a little bit because he’s teaching you something, but ultimately you have the ability to hear him. So if you don’t have an answer yet,

But just wait. Don’t fall in the trap of double mindedness and being wishy washy.

Another mistake that I’ve seen people make is that their words and their actions cancel out their requests. Proverbs 18, verse 21: the tongue has the power of life and death. So, for example, you can’t pray asking God to help you pass a test and then not study for the test. That’s not how it works. You have to do your part and then God does his part, right? It’s a partnership. So

If you keep calling yourself stupid.

Then most likely you’re not gonna do well on a class or in school or or whatever it is, right? So even when you ask the Lord to help you, because you’ve told yourself so many times I’m stupid, you’re speaking that over yourself and it’s becoming a reality, So you have to be careful what comes out of your mouth, and you gotta make sure that what you’re speaking into your life or what you’re speaking into the atmosphere, the situation, doesn’t contradict what you’re asking God to do.

Let me give you a couple personal examples. one time I was trying to overcome a bad habit, and the Lord said to me, Stop calling it my struggle. You’re owning it, you’re making it yours. It is not your struggle. It is a struggle that you have had, That you have been working on. But by by saying the word my, I kept taking it on myself. And he was like, Don’t label it that way. It is not yours. It is simply a struggle you are trying to overcome.

overcome. That was really like powerful for me. And I’ve really worked on not labeling things as mine unless they came directly from God and He gave them to me exactly. Another thing that happened is that He told me to stop saying you can’t afford it. we throw around these phrases all the time and don’t realize the power that they have over how we live our lives and what God is able to do in our lives. So I can ask God to keep providing financial provision

and abundance, but if I keep saying I can’t afford it, it ties his hands because I’m speaking into the atmosphere, something that contradicts my request. Here’s another example.

You can’t pray for someone to change or grow in a certain area if you are criticizing them in that area, if you are judging them. I had a very powerful example I read in a book one time. It’s about a dad who was praying over his son who had just experienced a really, really nasty divorce, and he had two little boys. And so this I guess really he was a grandfather pastor, was praying over his son and the two little boys and

Just God help help them to bounce back, recover, you know, praying against depression. And he just wasn’t seeing a change. And so finally, I think it he said it was a year or two of his son struggling, and he was like, Lord, why are you not answering my prayers and helping my son and my grandsons? And the Lord said to him, You have been judging and criticizing him, and that is getting in the way of me bringing healing. And that was such a powerful example.

To me, because I thought, my gosh, how many times have I made a smart comment and or a rude comment about somebody? a mistake that they made or something I didn’t like about it, and like the words that come out of our mouth, that can affect those people. And it’s just anyhow, we need to be careful what comes out of our mouth. Okay, are you speaking life or are you speaking death? That’s just that’s the point of this common mistake.

And then the final one that I wanted to bring up is unconfessed sin. If you refuse to repent, that puts a block between you and the Lord. If you’re making excuses for your sinful choices, your wrong attitudes and behaviors that are ungodly, so many people are like, it’s not that bad. I can participate in this or or that or whatever. and God takes those things seriously. God takes holiness seriously. And I know I’ve approached that on on

another episode. But the fact is the Bible’s clear. Unconfessed sin creates a block. If you want God to hear your prayers, you’re gonna have to deal with those places where you haven’t repented.

I know that can make people really uncomfortable, but it’s actually not that big a deal. You just ask the Lord to help you develop a tender heart towards sin, confess and repent often. It’s really simple. I wanted to give you this scripture. Isaiah 59, verse 2, it says, But your iniquities have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden his face from you. Do you want God to be hidden from you? Do you want to be separated from him so that he won’t listen to you when you pray? You gotta.

Take your sin seriously, you gotta look at that, right? There is a reason that God asks us to follow his ways. There is a reason God says, please don’t sin. I love what this one pastor taught me. This was so many years ago, but I this phrase has stuck with me for so long. He said, choose to sin, choose to suffer.

When God says don’t do that, what God actually means is don’t hurt yourself. And I have I have really tried to keep that mindset because what we don’t always remember is that sin causes harm, not just to us, but to other people. Sin will always cause harm. There will always be negative consequences. And God wants to protect us from that. There is a reason He set up some certain boundaries and he said, please stay within these boundaries. It’s because just like you know, you don’t let your kids

Play in the street, right? Because a car could come and they could get seriously injured or killed. There are boundaries in place for a reason. And so we’ve got to be paying attention to where things might be hidden or things that we were making excuses for. and then just remember: there’s a couple scriptures that talk about holding on to offense really is a big deal. Choosing not to forgive, unforgiveness will block your prayers every time. So if you struggle to hear the Lord, that is the first question.

I would ask him, Lord, do I have some unforgiveness somewhere in my heart? Is that why I can’t hear you? Is that why you’re not answering my prayers? So I wanted to throw those out. I’m sure there are other reasons why prayers go unanswered. These are just some of the common ones that I have encountered. Like I said, I’ve done all of them and I see them happen in other people’s lives. So those are some things for you to think about as you go about your week. Let’s explore the depths of these final thoughts, okay? Here’s some reflection questions for you.

Can you relate to any of these approaches on prayer that I just explained? Have you found yourself doing any of those things, saying any of those things? Where can you begin to make some changes in how you approach your prayer life? Bless you, friends. I hope you have a wonderful week and I’ll see you next time. Bye.