 Was in prison.  Learned grandmother was dying.  Prayed for God to spare her for a few more months until he could get out of prison.  She died before he got out. Unanswered prayer?

 Psalm 69:1-3 --Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.

 Answer me, O LORD, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me. Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble. Come near and rescue me; redeem me because of my foes.

 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.

 Illustration: Yes, no and wait.  Why would God say no?  Why would God say wait?  Teaching faith, patience, dependence on God, eagerness….

 James 4:15 – “Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."

 Garden of Gethsemane  Jesus praying for the cup to pass from Him.  Jesus prayed three times.  God’s answer: No, it cannot pass.

 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.

 Isaiah 40: Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God"? 28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

 This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Savior…. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.

 2 Chronicles 7: "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

 Yet my people have forgotten me; they burn incense to worthless idols, which made them stumble in their ways and in the ancient paths. They made them walk in bypaths and on roads not built up…. Like a wind from the east, I will scatter them before their enemies; I will show them my back and not my face in the day of their disaster."

 “The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.” F. B. Meyer