prayer...evidence of humility

When we pray God always gives us what we need most. If he doesn't give what we request, it's either not what we need most or we are not sufficiently humbling ourselves (i.e. praying) to receive it.

To say it another way, we may need humility more than what we are asking for or think we need or want, so keep praying and when you are truly humble/dependent on God he ¹may grant it. 

Prayer isn't about "getting things" from God for ourselves, it's about being in a posture -- of humility -- to receive things so we might advance God's kingdom and glory more effectively. 

Our greatest need is God himself. The primary disposition necessary to experience him to the fullest of his infinite glory is humility expressed in or by our dependence i.e. a sense of desperate need for God above a need for anything and everything else. Prayer is the greatest evidence of this humility/dependence.

If God withholds providing for our secondary needs, it is to strengthen awareness of our primary need for Him, thereby increasing a closer union/communion with Him.

The greatest evidence of our awareness of a primary need for him is prayer. Prayer is the language/expression/fruit of humility. You may have tremendous gifts, skills, and resources, but if you do not have humility you can not truly walk with God as you were designed to. He is the infinite Creator, we are his finite/dependent creatures. 

A focus on others

The best way to know we are truly dependent on God is when we seek (pray for) things for the honor/benefit of others; Christ first and our neighbors second.

We can ²not focus on others if we are not drawing from the love of God first. We must receive God's (sacrificial) love to give/love sacrificially.

The more connected we are to God the more love we have and the more lovely (more able to love sacrificially) we become.

And we are not drawing from the love of God unless we are in union/harmony with him.

And we are not in union with him without humility.

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¹actually he will grant it when we are truly humble. I say "may" only because God alone knows when our hearts are truly in a sufficient posture of humility to receive it as God intends; we just think we know. And if we think we are when we are not, we will wrongly expect what we are praying for.

This is why we are encouraged to persevere in prayer. Our persistence itself is a humbling process. If we persist long enough we will be sufficiently humbled to receive the answer we seek or over time God will show us what we are seeking is not honoring to God and we will stop asking.

Often what we seek is not the issue to why our prayers go unanswered. Sufficient humility is i.e. our disposition in asking and seeking it.

²Why is this? We were never designed to be the source of love but rather conduits of the true Source i.e. God. Unless and until we are "plugged in" to the Source, infinite love cannot flow to and through us. 

We can love -- give and receive it -- because we are like God. But we are recipients and responders to love, not the cause or source of it.