"You cannot ignore things, one by one, until tens or hundreds of items have piled up.."

OBEDIENCE

Suppose that you want God to answer your prayer and you have a desire within 
and an asking without, and God still has not answered your prayers. If you pray 
again and ask God why He has not answered you, He may say that you still have 
not obeyed Him in one thing and that He will not listen to your prayer until you obey 
Him in that one thing. Then you will realize that you need to obey God totally. 
After you have obeyed Him, you may say, "O God, I have removed what You 
wanted me to remove. God, answer my prayer now." In this way you acquire the 
new knowledge that God only answers the prayers of the obedient ones. The kind 
of knowledge which you acquire through dealing with God and through being dealt 
with by God is very different from the knowledge you acquire from reading the 
Bible or listening to messages.

Let me say a sincere word. The reason God does not listen to the prayers of many 
brothers and sisters is that they have not learned to obey God. If you do not listen 
to God all the time, neither will He listen to your prayer. You may think that many 
things are small and that you can ignore them. You may ignore them, but God 
will never ignore them. Let me say a very frank word: Many Christians still need 
to go through a thorough dealing from God. You cannot ignore things, one by one, 
until tens or hundreds of items have piled up. When you pray to God, you must 
have a thorough dealing with each matter, one by one. Unless you do this, God 
will not answer your prayer. Sometimes a great danger is approaching, and God 
may make an exception and listen to you. However, if you want God to continually 
answer your prayers, you have to faithfully obey God every time, on every item, 
and in everything.

Collected Works of Watchman Nee, The (Set 1) Vol. 10: The Present Testimony (3), 
Chapter 14, Section 2
Living Stream Ministy - Anaheim, California