"God doesnt exist and we can prove it because of unanswered prayer"

I was in a class today and on the lunch break me and a fellow student started talking about God and he said that he knows God doesn't exist because of unanswered prayer.  I said that this is a problem to be taken seriously and if he was interested in talking about it.  So we spent a half hour talking about it over lunch.

First let me say that this was an objection that really caught me when I started learning apologetics.  I was chatting with this one very active atheist here in Vancouver and he said he asked me if I thought God answered prayers, I said I definitely believe he does He has many times in my life.  Then he replied with "I guess he never answers amputees then"  I was caught off guard and did not have an answer. 

So how can we address the problem of unanswered prayer?

First I think its important to recognise that most people will only accept an answer of YES.  But God does not always answer yes.  He can answer three ways.  Yes, No and not yet.

I know that God has said no to me many times, and now I can say I am happy he did.  God has an eternal perspective.  He knows what is really important.  He knows when I ask for things that will actually end up hurting me, or that will cause me to drift away from him or may go against His plan.

But what about prayers for healing?  What about the amputee?  I would say that with prayers like these God answers "not yet"  it is the Christian worldview that life does not end at the grave.  We believe that we will be resurrected and receive new resurrection bodies.  We look forward to this day.  Also we know that Gods ways are actually higher than our ways so we cant always understand why God says yes, no or not yet.  But it makes sense considering both the Christian and the Atheist know we are only here for a blink of an eye as far as the universe is concerned. 

Think about what God's goals are for us.  His goals are not to create a perfect life for us.  We are not God's pets.  His goal is for the most amount of people to come into a loving relationship with him freely.

So we have to take the humble position of saying that indeed all prayers are answered, but we don't know why prayers receive other answers than yes.

There are answers though that always receive an answer of yes.  If we ever ask for forgiveness (1John 1:9) or salvation (Romans 10:13) God will always answer yes.  You can have total confidence that if you ask God for forgiveness and salvation he will answer yes and will make it evident to you through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit