Question:  Dear Greg,

            Does God hear/answer the prayers of unbelievers?

            Kim

Answer:  Dear Kim,

            God answers the prayers of everyone without consideration of merit, church attendance, faith or level of devotion.  God does not always answer our prayers in the way that we expect or desire.  His answer might be “yes”, “no”, or “maybe, let’s wait and see”.  When we, like little boys and girls, do not receive the answer we want we are tempted to say that God has not answered our prayers.  Garth Brooks has a great song about “unanswered prayers” in which he tells a story about the girl he desperately wanted to marry when he was young and how he told God that he would do anything for God if God let him marry her.  It didn’t happen, and a few years later he married someone else.  Later, at a high school reunion he met the person he had begged God for, and he realized that God had given him the person he needed--not the person he wanted.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht