Does God Play Favorites?

“Yet you heard the sound of my pleading ​when I cried out to you.” Psalm 31:22

If I could have a peso every time this question is asked, I would no doubt be a millionaire: why are some prayers answered, and others remain unanswered? 

In writer and speaker’s John Eldredge’ book, “Moving Mountains: Praying with Passion, Confidence and Authority”, he recounts the time in summer of 2012 when his home in Colorado Springs was almost engulfed in the flames of an unchecked wildfire. Winds started gusting 65 miles an hour like a violent storm. 

John described it thus: “The Waldo Canyon Fire jumped containment lines. Like the German blitzkrieg racing across Poland in 1939, it began sweeping east toward the city limits, unchecked and ravening. When all was said and done, 18,247 acres and 346 homes were consumed.... My neighborhood (we border the forest) had been placed on evacuation warning twice, and for days we watched the column of smoke rising over the mountains from the fire’s epicenter west of us, billowing to a height of thirty thousand feet like a thunderhead or the plume of a volcano, all orange and black and foreboding.” He called his wife Stasi to pack up as he was leaving the office to fetch them. They frantically called and texted friends to pray as they headed out with the dog and a few belongings, while “the winds were howling down the mountain, driving the flames forward like the hounds of hell.” For three days, they stayed with friends waiting for the news. Their home had been spared. 

 I quote from John’s book again for I just want to share with you this amazing miracle: “The veteran fire chief and a handful of wildfire “hot shots” had gathered on our street to stand in wonder as they witnessed something they had never seen before. The one-hundred-foot wall of flame should have swept down our summer-crisp hillside and engulfed our home in a matter of seconds. But it did not. Every time the advancing fury approached our property line, it wavered, hesitated, and pulled back. The raging furnace would not cross our property line. It would advance, then retreat, advance, then retreat—though the winds were at its back and the fire had just covered miles in a manner of minutes.”

“We realized it was at that same moment, three days earlier, that a friend had texted us, ‘I saw an ANGEL, above your house, spreading its wings and flapping them against the wind and the fire. I think you are going to be okay’”. When the Eldredges were able to go back home, they found that the fire had burned right up to their porch! It did not cross their property line and their aspen trees were unharmed! 

Does God play favorites? 

John is the President of Ransomed Heart Ministries. He has stated that his goal, above all else, is to "recover the treasure of the Gospel. [He] wants to see it restore the lives of men and women deeply, heal them as men and women, and then through that restoration and through the recovery of the gospel teach them how to walk intimately with God." Yes, John is a favored son, just as I believe each one of us is a favorite, deeply beloved of God. Some of our prayers are answered, some of our prayers have delayed responses, and some seem totally forgotten. But God does not forget. He just reacts according to the best for us in the eternal perspective which we do not see.