HOW GOD ANSWERS TO YOUR PRAYERS!

On an average, every human being must be going through his day making at least 1 prayer a day. That could be anything from praying that they get to work on time or praying that their boss is nicer to them to prayers like, I hope I find the right doctor for my mom or I hope I can find the right tutor for my son, prayers like people are of all kinds.  As I sit to write this article, our current population is 7,503,846,505 (and counting) which means 7,503,846,505 prayers a day. Now feel free to increase the minimum average of 1 prayer a day and then multiply it with our population (still counting by the way) and make note of that ginormous number because that’s the number of prayers God receives from us in his inbox PER DAY!!

Luckily for us, HE is far more patient than all of us put together and does not delete even 1 prayer from his inbox J. He also does not distinguish if one prayer is more important than the other. But what he does distinguish is the way he chooses to answer them.

Let me explain this with a few instances.

Ever just got out of a cab and you suddenly realize that you do not have enough money in your wallet, when right at that moment, you unexpectedly find a friend of yours who comes to your rescue.

At another point in time you could be grappling with an issue with your family. That’s when you happen to meet a friend who narrates the very same situation that you are facing, with her family too. On hearing out her problem you very easily explain to her how she could go about tackling the situation. Notice that by having your friend narrate her situation to you which was similar to yours, you got the chance to view the very same problem from outside of it, allowing you to look at it objectively. This allowed you to solve your own problem easily. Now interestingly enough, the solution was there within you all along, but it required a friend of yours to help you draw it out from within you. You realize that you could solve your problem the same way.

To state another instance, you could be looking out for a new job, when you suddenly happen to receive a message from an old friend. After connecting with one another after years of separation, you happen to exchange information about where each one is at in their life. On learning about your profile and understanding your need, your friend puts you in touch with a friend of theirs who is looking for someone with a similar profile as yours who works in a more creative environment. This is exactly what you too are looking out for, a perfect match. Here you think to yourself “Gee that was such an amazing coincidence”.

From all the three instances, you can see that God has answered your prayer, every single time, but he did not do so by directly whispering the solution in your ear. He did this by putting the right people in your path who could help you with your problems. He always answers your prayer, whether it is a friend who lends you the money when you didn’t know what to do, or the friend who narrates her problem to you that helped you find a solution or the friend you heard from after a really long time who helped you find your dream job. In every instance HE is there, working mysteriously through the people he puts in front of us. After all, they are a lot of emails (prayers) even for God to go through in a day, so why not have some fun while at it and do it differently every time. I am sure he too could use some variety.

There is a beautiful saying in Sanskrit which I am sure you all are familiar with which is “Atithi Devo Bhava”. This means ‘The guest is equivalent to God’. This makes me think that our ancestors knew about how God operates and how he chooses to answer prayers. They realized early on that every person we meet in our life has a beautiful lesson or a message to deliver to us. They saw God in every other person who crossed paths with them. How beautiful would it be if we were to live our lives by this principle.

So the next time you meet someone, listen to them, really listen to them, with an open mind and a loving  heart, for you never know if your next “Answer to your prayer” is just around the corner.