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.1 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.
Footnotes
- 1. Blessed art thou, Nephi [for thou] hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments. And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will. Behold, thou art Nephi, and I am God. Behold, I declare it unto thee in the presence of mine angels, that ye shall have power over this people, and shall smite the earth with famine, and with pestilence, and destruction, according to the wickedness of this people. Behold, I give unto you power, that whatsoever ye shall seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and thus shall ye have power among this people. And thus, if ye shall say unto this temple it shall be rent in twain, it shall be done. And if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou cast down and become smooth, it shall be done. And behold, if ye shall say that God shall smite this people, it shall come to pass. (Helaman 10:4-10) ↩