Why Does God Answer Some Prayers and Not Others?
Apr 07, 2026Summary
In this episode of the Arise, Women of God podcast, we dive into the painful reality of unanswered pleas, exploring how God uses the threads of our greatest struggles to weave a strength we didn't know we possessed. Our guest, licensed clinical social worker Wendi Christiansen, shares expert advice on trusting God's timing, breaking down how to find purpose while stuck in the waiting room. Whether you're a Christian woman looking to overcome the pain of spiritual comparison or simply curious about why does God answer some prayers and not others, this episode is packed with valuable takeaways.
Host Tamara K. Anderson also uncovers surprising insights about enduring discomfort, discussing how her own wrestle with her sons' autism diagnosis taught her to see the bigger eternal tapestry. If you’ve ever wondered about why does God answer some prayers and not others and how it impacts your faith during life's deepest trials, you won’t want to miss this conversation. Plus, we share practical steps for finding hope in the messy middle—making it easier than ever to apply these lessons in your own life, much like Joseph of Egypt did in the pit. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion on why does God answer some prayers and not others, and don’t forget to subscribe for more expert insights on navigating your spiritual journey!
Episode Takeaways
- The Tapestry Principle: God sees the finished, eternal masterpiece of your life. Often, we are staring at a single painful thread—or the messy knots on the back of the rug—and assuming the pattern is ruined.
- The "Normal for You" Perspective: Tamara shares her heartbreaking but perspective-shifting realization that comparing her family's struggles to the miracles of others was stealing her joy. God wasn't going to remove her sons' autism; He was creating a more compassionate, capable mother.
- The Preparation Phase: Using the story of Joseph of Egypt, Wendi highlights that spending time in the "pit" or the "prison" doesn't mean God has abandoned you. A long delay in an answer is often a massive preparation for a future calling.
- Romans 8:28: "All things work together for good to them that love God." Sometimes, the relief and the "good" we are praying for won't be fully realized until the next life, but we can trust the Master Weaver to not drop a single thread.
Resources
Are you struggling to feel God's hand in your messy middle? Download our FREE Roadmap to Revelation: 6 Steps to Hearing God in Your Daily Life, which includes an exclusive Receiving Light and Revelation Audio Meditation. Step 3 of the roadmap will help you navigate the growth process while you wait for your big answer! 👉 Download the Bundle Here: https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/pl/2148756546
Reflection Questions
- Are you currently staring at a "knot" in your life's tapestry? How does knowing God sees the finished masterpiece change your perspective on this current trial?
- Have you been guilty of comparing your hard trial to someone else's quick miracle? How can you surrender that comparison today?
- Read the story of Joseph in Genesis 37-41. How does his time in the prison shift your perspective on your own "waiting room" seasons?
- Is God keeping you in a place of discomfort right now because of the stronger, more compassionate version of you He is creating?
Host & Guest
Tamara K. Anderson @tamarakanderson
Wendi Christensen @wendichristensencounseling
Transcript
Tamara K. Anderson
00:00:00.560 - 00:04:44.650
Have you ever sat in the middle of a crisis, a health battle, a marriage falling apart, or a child struggling and felt like your prayers were simply vanishing into thin air?
It's hard enough to face the trial, but it's even harder when you see somebody else getting a simple miracle while your mountain size problem remains unmoved. You're asking, why does God answer some prayers and not others? Others? Because you feel forgotten. You're comparing yourself unjustly and spiritually.
Well, you're pretty exhausted. Don't give up hope, my friend.
By the end of today's episode, you will understand the tapestry principle, how God uses the threads of our greatest struggles to weave a strength we didn't know we possessed.
We're also going to help you solve the pain of unanswered pleas by exploring exploring the rest of the story of Joseph of Egypt and why God sometimes keeps us in the discomfort to create something better in us. We're moving from why me? To answering the why. Stay tuned. Ordinary Women Extraordinary Faith When God calls, we say yes.
The Arise Women of God Podcast hello and welcome to another episode of the Arise Women of God podcast.
I'm your host, Tamara K. Anderson, and joining me today is my amazing co founder of Women warriors of Light, the wonderful Wendi Christiansen, who happens to be a great resource because she's a licensed clinical social worker and has so much depth to draw upon. And today, Wendi and I are having a very real and raw conversation about the prayers we don't get the yes that we are looking for.
First, I'm going to share my struggle when my sons were diagnosed with autism and the perspective shift that changed everything.
Second, Wendi is going to take us into the pit with Joseph of Egypt to show how a no today is often a massive preparation for tomorrow or next year or 10 years from now.
Third, we're going to discuss why some answers take a long period of preparation and how to find the strength while you are stuck in the waiting room. And finally, we will talk about what God is creating in you while you are waiting for the miracle.
But let's kick it off by talking about the thread and the tapestry.
For example, when I was asking God to heal my sons from autism, I knew he had the power and you know, seeing people with their little miracles here and there. And yes, was I asking for a big miracle? I sure was.
But one of the things I've learned more in hindsight than in going through it was that God was in it for my long term growth and happiness and I was asking him to take Away the thing that would teach me the very most. And I was comparing myself to other people, which is so unfair. You know, comparison is the thief of joy, and it really is.
And so God's answer to me when I poured out my heart one night, asking God, why can't I have a normal family? He said, tamara, this is normal for you. And did it take the challenge away? No, but it did give me a different perspective.
Quit comparing yourself to everybody else. This is you. This is your family. These are your gifts. He could see. I like the comparison of the eternal. God sees the whole tapestry.
He sees that finished product, right? And. And I'm staring at a single thread saying, this thread is going to ruin my life.
It's not the life I want for myself, but God could see the vision of who I could become with this challenge, Right? Sometimes I don't know about you guys, but I feel like I'm staring at the knots on the back of the rug thinking the pattern is completely ruined.
But Wendi is now going to dive into one of those prophets in the Old Testament. Spent years, no, decades sitting in the messy part of his story before he could step back and see the masterpiece.
Wendi Christensen
00:04:45.050 - 00:07:44.620
Anyways, so Joseph gets sold, and he gets sold into Egypt. But I think in that pit where his brothers are kind of outside the pit, partying and eating and rejoicing and, hey, we got this great plan.
How rejected he must have felt. But in the scriptures, it says, and God was with him, which also tells me he must have been with God.
He must have thought, okay, I just don't know the rest of the story, but I'm going to trust God. And he does just that. And he does get sold to some merchants, and his brothers don't know whatever happened to him.
Well, then he gets sold into Egypt to Potiphar. And Potiphar is kind of a big wig in his world. And Joseph works hard. He has to put in the hard work.
He doesn't just sit back and let, you know, things be taken. And I'm sure he questioned, hey, God, where are you? I'm sold into this place and I'm a slave. Why are you not hearing my story?
And then Potiphar's wife goes after Joseph and he resists because God's in his heart. And then she accuses him of awful things that he didn't do. And it's. He's thrown in jail, and he's there, like, three years in jail.
Three years is a long time to be in prison. And I would have thought, where's God. But again, it says, and God was with him. And what I have seen is he just doesn't know the rest of the story.
He doesn't see that God is preparing him for great things, because the rest of the story is he interprets dreams for these two. The baker, the butler in the prison. Three years later, the butler remembers when the Pharaoh's asking, can someone interpret dreams?
Oh, yeah, there's this Hebrew slave in prison that he can. He can interpret dreams.
And so Joseph interprets the Pharaoh's dream and warns him of the famine that was coming and helps prepare Egypt so that Joseph is prepared and ready when his brothers eventually do come back, are begging for food because they don't have food. That whole entire time, if Joseph had just been like, God hates me. He's not listening to me. He doesn't pay attention to me.
In the pit in the prison now with Pharaoh. But Pharaoh sees his worth and his value and promotes him. And he's high up. Joseph didn't know the rest of the story, but God did. And.
And sometimes it's hard for me to know there's a rest of the story. Like you were saying, that tapestry, I see one thread, but God sees the entire tapestry.
And the hardest part is trusting that he sees the whole picture, that he sees the whole tapestry, and that he's not a God of chaos, but a God of order. And that he sent Christ to help us in the weaving of the tapestry where we can't see the picture, to trust that the picture will come together.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:07:45.340 - 00:09:06.880
Joseph did not know he was in a preparation phase while he was in that prison cell. He just knew it was hard. And often we make that same mistake, that preparation is an absence of God.
But as religious leader Richard G. Scott taught, it is a mistake to think that every prayer we utter will be answered immediately. Some prayers require a long period of preparation on our part.
Romans, chapter 8, verse 28--And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.
I love this verse, and I have clung to it at so many times in my life, when it comes to it felt like life was falling apart, that my prayers were not being answered. And I think the key in this verse is keeping hope that things will work out for our good.
And sometimes I think maybe for our good might not even happen until the next life.
So trusting God that whether things get tied up in a nice little bow by the end of this life or maybe it's the next, that everything will work out for our good.
Wendi Christensen
00:09:07.360 - 00:10:20.140
I was thinking about how you started being a mom of autistic boys and wanting, you know, the autism taken away.
God wasn't creating a mom that had a miracle performed in her life with boys being having autism removed, but he was creating a mom who could handle the challenges of autistic boys and became compassionate, loving, caring, even more tolerable mom who could handle so much more with these beautiful boys with autism.
He helped you to arrive to a higher, greater, better state as a mother in what you could handle and endure and put up with right than if it had been a mom who received a miracle and healed them. He look at what he was creating in you and I think sometimes we don't see.
We look for the end of the story or the prayer answered quickly as a relief to get out of the discomfort. But God sometimes keeps us in the discomfort and the hard and the difficult because of what he's creating in us.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:10:21.500 - 00:11:52.770
So my friend, God is not ignoring your prayer. He is answering the version of you he is still creating.
Whether you're in the pit, in the prison or in a waiting room, trust that the Master Weaver has not dropped a single thread of your life. He knows the end from the beginning and he can see who you are becoming through this messy middle process.
And if you're still struggling to feel his hand in the messy metal, we have built a tool to help you find the light. You can download our roadmap to Revelation PDF and a bonus receiving Light and Revelation Audio MP3 meditation for free at the link below.
Inside that roadmap, we walk you through step three, the growth process which God uses to teach us line upon line, little by little, while we endure and wait for the big answer. So my friends, don't give up on the big tapestry just because you're stuck on a knot.
He sees you and will answer your prayer with your eternal perspective in mind. And someday you'll look back in your life and say, oh, I see it now. So until next time my friend, may you yoke yourself to God. Trust the process.
Arise and do it God's way. God strong.
