Question from a reader:
Is there anything in the Bible suggesting that in Heaven, God will reveal to us how He answered our prayers while we were still on Earth? For example, if I prayed for a stranger on Earth without knowing how or if that prayer was answered, will God reveal that to me once I get to Heaven?
Answer from Stephanie Anderson, EPM staff:
Randy does think that on the New Earth, in the ages to came, we’ll learn how God answered our prayers. He writes: “We pray now in faith, believing our prayers are making an eternal difference; we anticipate Heaven, where we’ll learn God’s breath-taking answers to our prayers, including many that seemed unheard and ignored.”
Randy shared more thoughts in this article:
Usually we’re not able to see God’s immediate responses to our prayers, but in Heaven God may permit us to see what happened in the spiritual realm as a result of His answers to our prayers. In the Old Testament an angel comes to the prophet Daniel and tells him what happened as the result of his prayers: “As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you” (Daniel 9:23).
How many times have we whined and groaned about the very circumstances God used to save us? How many times have we prayed that God would make us Christlike, then begged him to take from us the very things he sent to make us Christlike? How many times has God heard our cries when we imagined he didn’t? How many times has he said no to our prayers when saying yes would have harmed us and robbed us of good?
Perhaps we’ll see the ripple effects of our small acts of faithfulness and obedience. Like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, we may well see how we affected others, and how living our lives differently influenced them. (May God give us the grace to see this now while we can still revise and edit our lives.)
Randy writes, “God has redeemed us ‘so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus’ (Ephesians 2:7). Throughout eternity, God will unfold more and more of His grace and kindness. …When we die, we’ll know a lot more than we do now, but we’ll keep learning about God and His creation and each other throughout eternity.”
That showing of His “immeasurable riches” surely might include us learning His answers to our prayers. I think you might also enjoy reading these reflections from Randy.
I hope this is a great encouragement to you; it certainly is to me!
