Often we’ll pray about something and wait for God to answer. Nothing happens so we pray again – and again. Sometimes we feel as if He isn’t listening or that our problem isn’t important enough for Him.
The truth is, God heard our words the first time. But He responds to our hearts and not to the words we speak.
Sometimes we ask God because it’s the right thing to do – but do we mean any of the words we’re saying?
Sometimes, we ask Him because we know God answers and we’ve read His Word and know that He hears us, but do we actually trust Him to answer?
The problem is not that God doesn’t hear us because we know that HIs Word is always true – the same yesterday, today and forever. So when we don’t get answers to our prayers, maybe it’s because our heart is really not in it as much as our words are.
“At the voice of thy cry, when He shall hear it, He will answer thee.” ……………..Isaiah 30:19
When God hears the cry from our heart and not from our lips, that’s when He answers because that’s when we are truly seeking Him.
Smile, God Loves You! 
Ronnie, I think you bring up an intriguing angle on the role of prayer with the God of the Bible. I am thankful that prayer is not a formula to get something, but it is a dialogue with the Creator. It seems to me that any answer God gives in response to our prayers is according to His time, His sovereignty and wisodm. God, as I understand Him, is not a cosmic ATM machine, but is relational and answers according to His perogatives. He is sometimes silent, silent with an answer later, or responds before the words leave our mouth, etc. Even as our relationship dynamics vary with human beings, God is not confined to a formula. Your emphasis was on the inner part, that is, that God is very aware of what we really do want apart from our words. I think that is a fair assessment (as Samuel wrote when annointing King David, that “God does not see as man sees; man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart”). It is on e of several dynamics in play with prayer. I believe that enormous number of Scriptural passages on prayer forms a mosaic that gives us clarity on what prayer really is and how we communicate with the Lord.
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