“…that your prayers be not hindered.” 1 Peter 3:7

The prophet Daniel was a man of prayer. There are times when he received immediate answers from Yehovah but, in Daniel 10, we read of one occasion when it took three full weeks for the answer he needed to arrive. At that point, he had a vision and a voice spoke to him, saying that his prayer had been heard immediately when he prayed, but that the answer had been “withstood” by the “prince of the kingdom of Persia.” In other words, the principalities and powers of darkness in the area where he lived had delayed the answer Daniel was awaiting. That is a clear indication that whenever we pray, Yehovah hears and answers, but there may be occasions when there is a delay in the physical manifestation of the answer – for a reason beyond our personal control. When that happens, we must continue to believe in Yehovah’s faithfulness and stand in faith until we receive His “reply”, knowing that He has heard our request and He will respond. Secondly, in 1 Peter 3, husbands are commanded to honour their wives, one of the reasons being to ensure that their “prayers (are) not hindered.” That is worth spending time meditating upon – to fully understand the ramifications of treating others disrespectfully. To illustrate a third point, the story goes that a father was putting his young child to bed. Kneeling together to pray, the child said ‘Dear Yeshua, thank you for my birthday, I really love it. I am sorry for when I hit my sister on the head with the door.” Her daddy said, ‘That is good. Is there anything else you want to say?’ ‘Oh yes,’ the child replied, ‘and, for my next birthday, please can I have…’ Daddy interrupted, saying, ‘Hang on a minute; you know you are talking to Yehovah right now, and not the birthday fairy?’ The little girl said, innocently, ‘Oh yes, that is OK, but Yehovah can just phone them!’ While that is a humorous story, we can all, very easily, be guilty of treating Almighty Yehovah, the creator of Heaven and earth, like a hired hand. We can, if we are not careful, think that Yehovah is standing by, like a restaurant waiter, waiting for our orders and requests, ready to fulfil our every whim and desire. When we do this, we need to understand what we are told in James 4:3, that, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”