Joe was a fervent believer in prayer. Every day, two or three times a day he would ask God to please let him win the lottery. Ten years went by and Joe did not win the lottery.

One day in his prayers he called out to God, saying, “Lord, I know you answer prayers I’ve seen it happen in many people’s lives. You have answered my prayers for other people but for ten years now I’ve been praying to win the lottery and I’ve not won a thing in all that time, I’ve not even received a sign.”

“Joe,” God answered back, “you have been a good and faithful servant and I would love to reward you with winning the lottery but you are going to have to at least buy a ticket.”

I am convinced that God does, indeed, answer prayers. I’m also convinced that to receive an answer to a prayer it has to be a legitimate prayer. in other words, it has to be a prayer prayed in the way that Jesus would pray, in search of God’s will.

I also believe that God requires us to help in answering some prayers, much like Joe needing to buy a lottery ticket in order to win the lottery. It is very easy to pray for the hungry to be feed but acting on the prayer to feed the hungry ourselves often doesn’t occur to us. By acting on our requests to God in this way we may see ourselves doing much more to feed the poor than we ever thought we could do before acting on this desire that we have prayed for.

Prayer often opens our eyes to solutions we can provide to those we pray for. If you are praying for a friend who is going through a rough time you are keeping that friend on your mind and by doing so God may give you an idea of how to comfort that friend. The key is to keep our minds open to what our prayers may require from us.