The God Who Answers Prayer: The Work of the Father, Son, and Spirit in Prayer (The Puritan Prayer Trilogy)

God was willing, resolved, and determined to hear your prayer before you were willing to ask. He decreed it from eternity. In fact, He was willing before you even had a will or existed. Furthermore, He was not only willing before you asked, but He is the cause why you are willing. You must not think that your prayers move God to be willing; His will is the same forever, not subject to the least motion or alteration. Prayers are a sign rather than a cause that God is willing. He is not made willing because we pray, but because He is willing, He stirs up our hearts to pray. “Lord, you have heard the desire of the humble. You will prepare their heart, you will cause your ear to hear” (Ps. 10:17). He first desires to do us good and then makes us desire it and pray for it, that we may have the mercy in His own way—a clear evidence that He is more desirous to give than we are to receive because He makes us willing to ask.