Another reason why our requests in prayers are not granted is that we don’t believe that He will do for us what we request. Now, this does not imply that we will always grant our requests if we do believe. It only means that He will not grant them if we do not believe that He will. Praying in faith means that we take God at His word. When he has promised something to us, we must pray in the assurance that God will be true to His promise. The second side of this thought is that “praying in faith” does not mean that God will grant any request we have made if we believe that He will do it. This causes man to think in terms of “having enough faith” and what that means if God doesn’t grant the request. If the request is not granted, we are forced to think that we just needed more faith. This is not taught in the Scriptures. Instead, Christ uses the “mustard seed” faith as if to suggest that having any faith is sufficient. We either have faith or we do not. While Jesus refers to “little faith” and “great faith, meaning that one places their trust in another with lesser or greater confidence, He still recognizes and accepts either one.
The real issue, here, is two-fold. First, we must not ask amiss and pray for that which is unreasonable and serves no purpose except to satisfy our carnal desires, while thinking that if we just believe, God will grant it. Second, when we pray, we must not pray for that which we desire while thinking that He will not grant it. For example, praying for cancer to be removed, while doubting that God will grant it is a futile and useless activity. No one like this should expect to receive anything from the Lord (cf. James 1:6-7). James 1:5-8 reads, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” As we pray, we must be like the woman who prayed for rain during a drought and went to work with an umbrella the following morning. A biblical example is found in Matthew 8. It reads, “When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly. And he said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And to the centurion, Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment” (Matt. 8:5-13).