You have probably known the experience of a prayer left without an answer — at least in appearance. You asked, for a long time, and nothing happened. Jesus’ promise then seems troubling. It takes on a different relief, however, when we understand that God always answers, but not always with a yes, nor always at once.
Sometimes His answer is a no that we will later understand as a gift. Sometimes a not yet that makes us grow before opening. Sometimes an otherwise that far surpasses what we were asking. Prayer is not an order we place; it is a conversation in which you learn to know the One who hears you — and who knows you, Himself, better than you do.
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”
Matthew 7:7-8