A week ago I received a prayer request from a friend who is a doctor in northern India. It happened that her email came through at 4:18 AM. I woke up at just that time and heard the signal that let me know I had a message.

I read the request and quickly wrote my prayer for her and clicked reply. I prayed that the fog would lift so the trains could maintain their schedules, that there would be protection from the cold, that her arthritic hands would be free from pain and that her ministry to her dying patients would be anointed by the Holy Spirit.

She replied with great gratitude for my prayer. The fog had, indeed, lifted. The train schedules were manageable. Her hands were pain free and she was able to minister with power.

I read this reply in the home of my friend, for whom I have prayed for decades, but whose pain in unrelenting and I asked God, “Why do you answer some prayers and not others?”

He replied, “I answer them all.”