When I was about fourteen years old, I gave into peer pressure and began smoking with my friends. I did not have a personal relationship with Jesus at that time. I did have parents who would never condone my smoking. This meant going to great lengths to hide my bad habit.

   My friends and I got away with our little secret for many years. After all, the warning on the pack simply stated that cigarettes may be hazardous to your health, not that they definitely were. It wasn’t the smoking that worried me; it was getting caught.

   The years went by, and I continued to smoke. Finally, I was at an age when my parents allowed me to smoke. But things were beginning to change. The warnings on the packs were definite. Smoking was dangerous to your health and could cause results like heart disease and cancer.

   Both my parents were smokers who switched to a milder brand. However, it was too late. At age forty-four, my dad died of a massive heart attack, and some years later, at age sixty, Mom succumbed to lung cancer. I was crushed.

   In spite of this, I kept on smoking. Now, though, I knew Jesus as my Lord and Saviour. I was a wreck but could not quit smoking. I cried and I prayed, and I cried and I prayed some more. I counseled with my pastor and asked my whole church family to pray.

   Little children from my Sunday school class would approach me to let me know that they were praying for me. How pathetic I felt! Why wasn’t God answering my prayer? Why wasn’t He answering the prayers of these children who loved their teacher?

   I knew people would say that God answers every prayer, but sometimes the answer is “no,” and sometimes it is just “wait.” I believed that, but I now was really becoming discouraged. Why would God say “no” when His Word says, “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (1 Chorinthians 6:19 KJV).

   There was only one response that I could make, and that was to go back to the Lord. I was alone in the house one day when the Lord spoke to my heart. He told me that prayer had to be honest. I knew immediately what that meant. Hurriedly, I went up the steps.

   I fell at the side of my bed, and kneeling before God, I could not have been more honest. The fact was that I had become addicted to smoking, not just physically but psychologically. Therefore, I enjoyed smoking, and I didn’t want to quit. I admitted this to my precious Lord who already knew, but wanted to hear it from me. I had to ask Him to take away my desire to smoke, my dependance on cigarettes, and the control I was giving to them. I prayed that my desire would be to please Him, surrender all control, and depend wholly on God. What a burden was lifted!

   Prayer is always answered when we pray with a right heart, an honest and submissive heart. It is answered when we pray to our Father the way Jesus Himself prayed: honestly, wanting the Father’s will, and in complete obedience, obedience unto the cross.

   If we do not pray in His will, we are not truly praying. Jesus said, “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38 KJV). God’s will is always the truth to pray for.