I was married for twenty years, and we separated due to another female in church; I prayed that our marriage would not end and we would reconcile.  But that didn't happen; we were divorced, and he remarried after two weeks.  Can you tell me why my prayers were not answered?  And why they committed adultery, lied, and even stole from the church but still think that what they did was not wrong? Thank you.
Sincerely, Devastated

Dear Devastated,

God desires for all of us to purify our hearts and minds and turn from sin, but He also gives us the freedom to choose for ourselves.  God has multiple principles that He must keep in balance at all times.  God hears prayers, but He also allows people to decide for themselves whether or not to be righteous or wicked.  If God simply forced people to become better people, that would remove our freedom of choice.  After all, He tells us that we reap what we sow in this life (Gal 6:7).

We cannot imagine the amount of pain you have been through.  It isn’t that God doesn’t hear prayers; it is that your husband chose to do something sinful.  God doesn’t like it (Mal 2:16), but as we said, God still respects our freewill.  As for how these two people can believe that what they did was okay… sadly, when we choose to do wicked things, it can sear our conscience (1 Tim 4:2), and people rationalize all sorts of sinful behavior because they “feel” it is right.  Every man believes he is right in his own eyes, but in the end, the Lord makes a just judgment (Pr 21:2).   SB