Your words have come up before the Lord as an honest cry from a weary heart, and I thank you for speaking plainly rather than hiding your grief. To be a father to two teenage daughters, to bear the weakness that has lingered since your stroke in ###, to feel the daily burden of having no transportation and to pray the same prayers for years and seem to receive no answer, this is a heavy trial indeed. It is no small thing, and the Lord knows the weight you carry both in body and in spirit.
Do not let the tempter whisper to you that prayer is all a fancy and that you should draw no more near to God. I pray you, spurn that thought with all your might and still cry, both in the daytime and at night, for the Lord will still hear your prayer. Brethren must not take delays in prayer for denial. God's long dated bills will be punctually honored. Unanswered petitions are not unheard. God keeps a file for our prayers. They are not blown away by the wind, they are treasured in the King's archives. There is a registry in the court of Heaven where every prayer is recorded. O tried believer, your sighs and your tears are not fruitless.
You say you have forgiven your enemies and forgiven sins, and you look for God to repay, and nothing seems to come. Hear this, forgiveness is obedience to Christ who forgave us when we had no merit, not a bargain by which we make God our debtor. He does not repay as a master pays wages, He blesses as a Father shows mercy. If you do not prevail with God in prayer, hear what He seems to say, Search and look. Search yourself and breathe the prayer, Search me, O God, and try me, and know my ways, and see if there is any evil way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. This is not to condemn you, but to draw you nearer, that nothing may stand between your soul and His mercy.
And know this also, He is strengthening your muscles and tendons, sinews and power by the arduous exercise of unanswered prayer that you may be finely useful in the future. The Canaanite woman cried and for a while the Lord answered her not a word, yet her perseverance was the very pathway to His commendation, O woman, great is thy faith. You must not sit down in despair because no promise has come home to your soul. Still continue to cry unto the Lord. Still be constantly in prayer to Him. He will, He must hear you, by and by, and you shall have your heart's desire in His time and wisdom.
You ask, where is the action if love is an action word. Look first to the cross, where God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. That is action never to be questioned. And look back upon the hill top of your present experience and see how many feeble prayers have already been nursed and nurtured and fostered and accepted, and have come back as full grown blessings bearing mercy in both its hands. How often you have awaked and found your house and family kept secure, though the evening prayer seemed poor. How often He has given journeying mercies and kept you in the midst of danger. These are not small things, though sorrow now makes them seem dim.
Therefore set your face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication. That setting of the face is expressive of resolute purpose, firm determination, undivided attention and fixed resolute perseverance. Order your cause before Him and fill your mouth with arguments, not fine language but the promises of His word. Plead His covenant which stands not in your strength but in Him who abideth forever in His Melchizedek priesthood, and in the power of an endless life. He stands in absolute perfectness under every strain, and therefore the covenant stands in Him. He does not deal with His people as if they were blocks of wood or iron cast into a mold. He deals with you as a living soul, and He would have you live near to Him, abide in Him, be much in private prayer, for that stirs up the fire and makes it burn more brilliantly.
Prayer is the rope which hangs down on earth, and there is a bell in Heaven which it rings and which God hears. Pull that rope again tonight, praying father. Make the great bell in Heaven ring again and again, and let its notes be, Save my children, keep my daughters, provide for this household. He who holds you holds you with a double encircling, Christ's pierced hand clasped within the Father's hand, so that you shall not be plucked away.
To wash your hands with Jesus Christ would be to step into that place described as having no hope, and without God in the world. Do not turn from the only fountain of life when your thirst is greatest. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, you righteous, and shout for joy, all you that are upright in heart, not because the burden is light today, but because He who hears prayer has not forgotten you.
I will pray for you and your family now as you have asked, and I urge you to let a faithful pastor or godly brother near you know of this struggle, that they may stand with you in person and help bear the burden.
O Lord God, hear this father who cries in weariness. Thou hast seen his long prayers, his tears, his stroke and weakness, his labor for his two daughters, his lack of provision for even transportation. Have mercy upon this household. Forgive his sins through the blood of Jesus Christ, who alone is salvation, and teach him to forgive as he has been forgiven, not to earn favor but because favor has been given. Strengthen his body as Thou seest fit, guard his daughters in their youth, keep them from evil and draw them to Thyself, provide for this family daily bread and such means as Thou knowest they need, and above all give this father a renewed spirit of perseverance, that he may not faint in prayer but continue until Thou answerest in Thy perfect wisdom. Keep him from turning away, and hold him fast in Thy covenant. In the name of Jesus Christ our only hope, Amen.