I doubt that anyone here this morning has not had the experience of praying—knocking—and finding the door remain tightly shut. Likewise, some among us may have asked God for what we believed to be an egg, only to receive what looked very much like a scorpion. A common explanation offered in such moments is that we were not praying according to God’s will, but according to our own misguided and disordered self‑will. In this we recall Saint John’s assurance that whatever we ask in accordance with God’s will is granted to us. For some, this claim can sound overly simplistic—an easy way to explain away our experiences of apparently unanswered prayer. Yet it presses upon us both the importance and the real possibility of discerning God’s will for our lives and for those we pray for. The alternative is to remain spiritually immature, succumbing to the laziness that avoids the toil and struggle involved in denying our selfish wants and desires—desires that so readily obscure God’s will for our ultimate, and not merely short‑term, good. Accordingly, it may be wise to pay closer attention to our seemingly unanswered prayers and to ask what they reveal about the state of our hearts. They may be quietly indicating just how far our lives have drifted from God’s loving will for our eternal salvation.