Do you ever get disappointed when you ask God to take away pain and suffering and he doesn't do it? It can be frustrating when you pray as hard as you can for help from God, and then it seems as if he ignores your prayers.
What should you do?
St. Augustine has some advice in A Letter to Proba. He first explains how we often don't know how to pray as we ought when we encounter suffering.
Sometimes God answers our prayers in the positive, relieving us of the suffering we are asking God to remove.
However, that doesn't always happen, and this can lead to disappointment. St. Augustine explains that God allows this to happen for a reason.
Above all, we should pray as Jesus prayed in the Garden.
If God disappoints us in prayer, may we not see the negative, but open ourselves to holy obedience, understanding that God's ways are not our ways.
God has a plan, but we may not always understand it.
