Prayer is not a manipulative tool by which we receive our wishes and desires. Our wants may be godly or they may be ungodly. In either case, prayer is not a wishing-well tool to access those wants. The example of Christ demonstrates that God sometimes answers our petitions with, “No:”
There are, no doubt, passages in the New Testament which may seem at first sight to promise an invariable granting of our prayers. But that cannot be what they really mean. For in the very heart of the story we meet a glaring instance to the contrary. In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not. After that the idea that prayer is recommended to us as a sort of infallible gimmick may be dismissed.… [C. S. Lewis, “The Efficacy of Prayer.”]
HT: CQOD.
Words of Grace 