According to a recent survey conducted by the American Bible Society (ABS), 48% of Americans believe they received a miraculous answer to prayer, Faithwire reports.

Dr. John Plake, who heads the ABS State of the Bible series, added that the numbers for answered prayer were substantially higher among those considered practicing Christians where nearly 90% reported receiving a miraculous answer to prayer.

Even among those who did not self-identify as Christian, 20% still reported miraculous answers to prayer.

Plake believes that the higher percentage among Christians reveals the impact of a different worldview. Because Christians believe in the supernatural world, they are more apt to pray for a situation which in turn results in more miraculous interventions.

“People who are practicing their Christian faith, I think, have a worldview that allows them to see that there’s more to life than just the naturalistic world around them,” Plake noted. “And so they are more likely to pray, and they are more likely to have these experiences of saying, ‘Hey, something supernatural, something miraculous happened in response to that.’”

The survey also found that 35% of Americans reported personally experiencing or witnessing a divine healing miracle.

Again similar to prayer, the numbers were significantly higher among Christians with 58% of Evangelicals reporting they had witnessed or personally experienced divine healing.

Considering that a significant proportion of Christians, such as members of the Southern Baptist Convention, do not believe that healings and spiritual gifts are for today, Plake was surprised by the high percentage reported by Evangelical Christians.

This suggests that cessationist’s belief that the spiritual gifts ended with the passing of the 12 apostles may not be written in stone.

But in the end this survey sounds similar to the advice given by James, the half-brother of Jesus, on how to receive answered prayer.

First, he wrote, “You do not have because you do not ask,” (James 4:2).

Simply, we are not receiving answers to prayer because we are not petitioning Jesus for help.

Then when we do ask, our motives can be skewed.

“You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives,” James continues, “so that you may spend what you request on your pleasures” (James 4:3).

At times, we can even convince ourselves what we are praying is for the benefit of others or even the Kingdom of God, but in the end it also benefits us personally.

I am not suggesting that personal prayers are wrong, because we can have legitimate needs and those are important to God.

But at times, our motives can be mixed and verses suggest that God may not even be hearing those types of prayers, much less answering them.

In 1 John 5:14, John emphasized the importance of praying according to God’s will writing, “if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”

Prayer is a vital part of the Christian experience as God wants us to engage with us to build His Kingdom.