God’s responses to your request provide a proxy to measure how well you know him. The less often God grants your requests, the more evidence you have of distance between how you believe God is and how he actually is. The more you learn about God and the more you restrict your requests to what best advances his purposes, the more often he will grant your requests.863 The Lord promised that:
...whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you. (3 Nephi 18:20)
The more unanswered questions you have for God, the more evidence you have of distance between how you believe God is and how he actually is.
The Lord’s responses to our questions are subject to what we are willing to receive. The more you know and live God’s character, the more directly and immediately he can answer the questions you ask him. The more you know him, the more building blocks you have from which he can construct the answer to your questions. The less about him you know, the more he will have to lay out to you in order to answer your questions, and the more likely limits in your cognitive abilities, diligence, or trust in him are to form a barrier between you and the answer to your question.