Answered Prayer

I do not believe that God is ever beholden to us like a freed genie. However, I do know that He answers prayer. I don't really understand how this mystery works, but I do know that Scripture gives us some guidelines about prayer. Here is a pretty clear one:

Psalms 66:16-20 ESV
(16) Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul.
(17) I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue.
(18) If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
(19) But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer.
(20) Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me!

Note verse 18. I can remember when I lived in sin that my prayers seemed to hit the ceiling and just stop. Now I think mine go as far as the sky and stop, so I guess that's better. However, I also think that there are times when I feel like I'm really plugged in. Verse 18 seems to be one of those keys. How can God hear our prayers when we cherish iniquity in our hearts?

I think it's easy to overreact to this and think that we must be sinless if God is going to hear our prayers. That cannot be true or else no one could pray. Of course, we are sinless in one sense since we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ. However, what I think this verse means is that we should not be in a state where we are actually cherishing sin. We may sin. We may be tempted with evil thoughts. And so on.

But what do we cherish? Is our deepest heart desire to pursue the Lord and be more like Jesus? Or is our deepest desire to enjoy the temporary pleasures of sin?