Does that mean prayer doesn’t work? No—because you’ve seen it work too many times. Does it mean that God isn’t good? No, God is good, whether you’re in pain or not. Does it mean that you should give up on prayer? No! God is not a vending machine, and prayer is not a painkiller. He has not guaranteed us a pain-free life.

When you’re in pain and you pray but don’t see the answers, don’t give up. Your job is to keep praying and keep trusting God, because you know that everything he does and allows in your life, he will use for good. God is a good, good Father, even when you’re in pain.

If a doctor cuts you open during surgery, that’s going to cause some pain. But if that surgery saves your life, you wouldn’t say the doctor was bad; you’d recognize that the painful work saved your life.

When God doesn’t immediately end your pain, he is saying to you in that moment, “This pain may feel like too much. But my grace is sufficient for you.”

I’ve had a lot of pain in my life. And, in fact, almost everything I’ve learned in life, I’ve learned through pain. That’s because God is more interested in making me a man of character than he is in making me comfortable. God is more interested in making you a man or woman of character than he is in making you comfortable. If you never had any pain or difficulty in your life, you would never grow to maturity. You don’t know God is all you need until God is all you’ve got.

“‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the LORD. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT).

God wants good for your life, even more than you do. Will you trust him?