5 Reasons an Angel May Not Be Able to Answer Your Prayer

Angels hear your every prayer—especially your guardian angels, who are assigned only to you and are with you constantly. Angels are also uniquely qualified to help answer your prayers, as one of an angel's main duties is to act as messenger, carrying your requests to Spirit and advocating for you with the Divine. Likewise, angels are on a mission to help us live up to our soul's full potential on earth by mentoring us with their love and guidance, another reason "answering" our prayers falls into an angel’s job description.

Having a prayer go "unanswered" can seriously shake people's faith in Spirit and their angels. But let’s clear up a few misconceptions about “unanswered prayers.” First, an angel is not a genie in a bottle—angels were never meant to, nor do they have the authority to, fulfill your every need and desire. Second, every prayer is answered—just not always in the manner or timeframe you want or expect! It's especially important to understand that angels cannot save someone's life if it is their time to go, nor can angels spare someone from experiencing a trauma or significant challenge if this experience is destined to help them grow or help others.

If the answer to your prayer is not what you were hoping for, you might be wearing blinders and miss the angels' answer altogether (which could come in the form of new opportunities or simply a different way to think about your situation, for example). Or, if you are very "attached to outcome," as the Buddhists say, you might be so angry that your angels' answer to your prayer does not match your desire (instead of your dream house you can only get financing for a much smaller, more humble abode) that you push the angels' offering aside without even considering it, like a defiant toddler refusing dinner. The angels want me to remind you about the importance of rephrasing your prayers. Instead of saying, "I want so-and-so to fall in love with me," try a more open-ended prayer, like, "I want a partner just right for me so I can be in a loving, committed relationship." The angels advise you to be equally open-minded about the answers to your prayers. Instead of a romantic partner, the angels might send you messages that you should do some emotional work with a therapist to heal old wounds or bring your self-confidence up so you will be more ready for a serious relationship with a loving partner.

Are you struggling with something and have asked the angels for help, but feel they are not answering your prayers, or are not sending you the people, opportunities, resources or specific outcome you believe the situation requires? Take a look through this list of common reasons why an angel may not be able to "answer" your prayer. When you hit on one or even several reasons why your prayer may not have been answered in the manner you expect or desire, your intuition will let you know.

The Angels have Something Better in Store for You

The angels have told me that sometimes we won't aim high enough in our prayers, or we will aim our prayer in the completely wrong direction. You might have been looking for a job for some time, interviewing for positions you are completely qualified for, yet never getting an offer. The angels may know that you are more qualified than you think, and that it's time for you to move up to a position with more responsibility and compensation that will challenge you and bring you to a new level of personal growth and financial abundance. Angels can see the potential in us before we are consciously aware of it ourselves. The answer to your prayer for a new job is: Aim higher. Or perhaps you're trying to switch careers, and you think you've found the right field to jump to. It's not your passion, but jobs in this field are very stable and it's close to what you were doing before. You aren’t excited about working in this field but think it's your only choice, so you ask the angels constantly for help launching you into this new career. For two years you apply to training programs yet you can't get accepted to one no matter what you try. Then a friend who is a nurse takes you out to lunch and you become intrigued about her career. You shadow the nurse at her hospital and get excited, able to picture yourself enjoying this profession, feeling at home in this atmosphere. You apply to a nursing program and are accepted immediately. The answer to your prayer for a new career is: Aim in a different direction.

Your Prayer Can't be Answered until the Divine Timing Lines Up

This one can be incredibly frustrating. You've gotten tons of signs and synchronicities from the universe that you should be a mom. You've checked with your employer about maternity leave, read a ton of books about how to have a healthy pregnancy, go all gooey when you see a baby at the park and have been given the "all clear" by your doctors. Yet every time you pee on a stick the result is: negative. The doctors can't find any fertility issues. You do acupuncture. You change your diet. You even try more invasive methods. And the whole time you keep getting strong signs from your angels that you are meant to get pregnant, yet you never do. A few years go by. During that phase you and your partner both grow tremendously in your careers. You are both happier and more fulfilled professionally than you ever could have dreamed. At the end of this period of intense personal transformation you look around and realize you are light years from where you were, and that these growth spurts required much of your time, energy, and mental and emotional resources. You've given up having a baby naturally and are focusing on adoption when you suddenly get pregnant! The angels and Spirit were not torturing you by denying your request for a child for those long years. They just knew that your soul had other things to accomplish before you became a mother, and having all your spare time and energy monopolized by your little bundle of joy for the first few years of its life would not have enabled you or your partner to grow as you needed to as individuals. Your prayer for a child all hinged on divine timing: Before you gave birth to a child, you needed to give birth to a new you.

Your Prayer Interferes with the Free Will of Another

Just like angels, humans are dynamic, powerful spiritual beings. And so we have been granted free will by Spirit so that we may help navigate our journeys here on earth. If your prayer request specifically interferes with another person's free will, the angels are not always, but often, unable to interfere. This type of situation can be devastating, the angels tell me, not only for the human making the prayer request, but also for the angels whose "wings are tied." Perhaps you are in love with someone, and you're sure they feel the same. But this person refuses to have a relationship with you. They could be closing off their heart and putting up walls because they've been badly hurt in past romantic relationships, or because of trust issues or poor self-esteem that stems from childhood neglect or trauma. Even if the angels send this person messages that they need to start healing, and that they should seek out love, it is up to the individual to choose to enter a relationship with you or not. Perhaps someone you love is an addict. You pray they'll get help, and you suggest programs, doctors and support groups to your loved one. Angels nudge your loved one constantly about this, sending them thoughts and strong feelings that they should seek help and get control of their life back. Yet your loved one doesn't make even the smallest effort to change. The angels want me to remind you of the old saying, "You can lead a horse to water..." The human will is formidable, and even if that human will is set on a course of action that is self-sabotaging, the angels can't always "overrule" someone's free-will choices.

Your Prayer is Not Aligned with Your Soul Contracts or the Soul Contracts of Another

Soul contracts are agreements we make with ourselves, Spirit and other souls before we are even born. You might pray your child will be born "perfectly healthy," and then learn in a sonogram that your baby is missing a limb. You might have had a soul contract to raise a child with special needs because you are uniquely positioned to advocate for these children and change the system, or perhaps your soul will grow and transform in amazing, wonderful ways through the difficulties and gifts that come with raising a child with special needs. In addition, your child might have a soul contract to experience the world this way: to inspire others by their ability to rise above challenges, and to profoundly touch people's hearts because of their physical limitations. Or perhaps you pray your partner, a talented surgeon, will rise in her field and earn top dollar. But when your partner is offered a position at the head of a famous hospital, she refuses the position, and the money, to spend a few years working for Doctors Without Borders, eventually opening up a clinic in an impoverished part of the world. Of course it could have gone the opposite direction: Your partner could have had a soul contract to run a large successful hospital, secure that hospital more funding by hobnobbing with the rich, and head up ground-breaking experimental procedures. It all depends on the nature of the soul contract. Soul contracts are very influential on a subconscious level, and when someone feels compelled to dedicate their life to something like a calling, it means they are following the inner GPS of a soul contract.

Your Prayer is Not in Harmony with the Greater Good or Destiny of the World

Sometimes people experience tragedy so that others around them or the world in general can learn a powerful lesson. Perhaps you pray your friend's test results come back from the hospital negative, but when your friend receives a terminal diagnosis he then becomes a national advocate for better quality end-of-life care. Your prayer to keep your friend on this planet with you for decades to come interfered with a much larger need: the need of millions of patients to receive better end-of-life care, which your friend's illness could help facilitate. You might ask the angels to help you secure the building rights to a piece of land, but instead this land is declared a wetlands preserve and you are barred from breaking ground. Your prayer to build on this land interfered with something much larger than that prayer: the healing and preservation of the earth. Every prayer is important, and your angels never want you to feel looked over or shut out from Spirit's grace. If you feel your prayer was sidelined because something "bigger" was at stake, then look for another way to get your needs met. The angels are always happy to help with this and are probably already sending you ideas.

They Are Listening

Angels and Spirit never withhold something to punish you, and angels often cry right along with you when something doesn’t work out as you planned or hoped. Yet angels must always think of your highest good, and the highest good of everyone involved, when answering a prayer. Even when angels can’t answer your prayer exactly the way you want, angels are always trying to bring you, and encourage you to take, the best possible option in any situation. If you can’t understand why a prayer seemed to go unanswered, or was answered in a way you were deeply disappointed about, get quiet and ask the angels for insight. Sometimes knowing the reason behind why something happened or didn’t happen can bring us an enormous amount of wisdom—and peace.