"Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will
find; knock, and the door will
be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches
finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew
7:7-8)
In
the light of such words, why is it our prayers often seem to be unanswered?
You knew somebody who was
ill. You prayed fervently that God would heal them. They died. Was your prayer unanswered?
An opening came up in your
job. All the pieces fitted together. You were prepared, a promotion was overdue, and it would do you and your family good.
You prayed about that position. But they passed you over and brought somebody in from outside. Was your prayer unanswered?
You lost a stone out of your
ring. It was a ring that had both actual and sentimental value. You prayed that God would help you find it. You never did.
Was your prayer unanswered?
“Why do prayers go
unanswered?” is one of the questions that appeared in a Top 10 list of questions frequently asked to pastors and which
were printed a few years back in the Readers Digest. Unanswered prayer is one of the challenges that we face as Christians.
We believe in prayer. We practice prayer. We don’t always see answered prayers.
Let us start be putting the
question in the right perspective. This is not God’s problem. This is our problem.
God is in no way confused about the matter.
Our confusion stems partly
from the fact that in asking the question, we show ourselves to have made up our mind what we believe prayer is and how prayer
should work. Surely prayer is not just about asking, but also about listening and talking and meditating and thinking and
dreaming and praising. Prayer is not begging favors from a big old Mr. Meanie in the sky!
By asking “Why prayers
are not answered?” it suggests that we have decided beforehand how certain prayers should be answered! If the prayer
is not answered in the fashion we believe it should be, then we complain that nobody is listening.
If God is sovereign of the
Universe, the all-powerful creator and sustainer, it seems fair to conclude that God is under absolutely no obligation to
answer our prayers in the way we feel God should.
The Bible, that volume of
books that is designed to bring us to faith and to build our expectations in what God can do, gives us some startling examples
of prayers that were not answered in the way people had hoped for.
Moses prayed that God would
allow him to enter the Promised Land, but he died on top of Mount Nebo. The prophet Habakkuk begins
his book with the words, “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not Listen?" (Habakuk 1:2)
Paul prayed three times for the removal of the thorn in the flesh that was hindering his missionary
labors, but as far as we know the problem haunted him for the rest of his life.
Jesus, the Son of God and our Savior, prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that the Father would remove His cup of suffering. But He drank that cup to its bitter depths!
How are we to understand
these instances? Was God simply not listening, taking no notice? Again we have
to question our own assumptions about how God should act. For some reason we expect God to say ‘Yes’ as an answer
to whatever we ask.
There are other absolutely
reasonable answers. Such as;
- “Yes, but not in the way that you are thinking of.”
- “Yes, but not yet.”
- And of course, “NO” is also a valid response!
“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be
opened for you.” But you may not receive exactly what you are asking for, (particularly if you are demanding a ‘yes’)…
seek and you will find an answer, knock and the door will be opened, but behind it may not be precisely what you expected.
Unanswered
prayer, as I said at the start, it is our problem, not God’s problem. God always has an answer; our problem is that
it’s not the one we asked for. Now there is a biblical explanation to this.
It
appears that God operates on a different agenda to our agenda. Often the things we count as all important are things such
as money and possessions and status. God tells us these are insignificant. Often
the things we invest with little significance…things such as solid relationships, honoring and respecting all peoples
worth and dignity, looking to the needs of others as much as our own… God tells us that these are the big things about
life on planet earth.
Listen,
here is the answer in a nutshell. “Why are prayers not answered?” Because, prayer is not all about asking. It’s
about submitting our wills to the will of God. That’s why Moses died on mount Nebo. That’s why Habakkuk felt God would never come around, that’s why Paul never had the thorn in his flesh removed,
that’s why Christ had to struggle and sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. Prayer is about disciplining our lives so that the will
of God may be done on earth as it is in heaven. Prayer is an attempt to line up our agenda with God’s agenda.
Here’s
an illustration. Mum and a child are going to Wal-Mart. So Mum makes up her list of what they need – Food. Drink. Bread.
New socks. And so it goes. Maybe even a few treats thrown in. Meanwhile the child has heard they are going to Wal Mart and
is making up his/her own list – Bike. Skateboard. Fishing line. Sponge Bob Square pants X-Box game, all the Disney DVD’s they have in stock, a dog, a monkey, (if they sell monkeys... who wouldn’t
want a monkey?)...so, the list grows.
It
is obvious which list of items is going to make it to the check out. The child is going to be very disappointed if he expected
their list to be fulfilled. Sad thing is, sometimes our prayer lists are more comparable with the shopping list of the child
than the mother… more filled with wants than needs, more concerned with what we want than what God wants for our lives.
Now,
if mum and child sat down together and made the list, then you know what? The child would know what to ask for! Surely that
also applies to prayer with God. In prayer we are called to line up our agendas with God’s agenda, in order that our
service and worship of God may be more effective and real and alive!
Rather
than talking about unanswered prayers, let me phrase the question a bit differently and ask, “How can we take steps
to pray about the right things?” I suggest 3 steps:
1) Pray with Persistence
Be
assured, God wants us to pray. Out text makes clear that it is good to ask things of our Father in Heaven. Jesus tells us
to ASK, SEEK and KNOCK.
ASK: When we ask of God it means we see our need of Him. It means we believe God can meet our needs.
SEEK: This indicates there is some effort involved in our asking. We can pray “Give us this day our daily
bread,” but that does not remove from us the responsibility to work for our daily bread. We can pray “Thy Kingdom
Come,” but we still have to work to bring the values of God’s Kingdom to bear upon the kingdoms of this world.
KNOCK: When you were in school you wouldn’t go and casually knock on your principal’s study door
unless you had something you really needed to talk about. You wouldn’t go in there and say in a random fashion, “Hey
dude, did you see the game last night!”
It’s
not that God is too busy to hear our prayers; rather that our prayers have to be from the heart. ‘Knocking’ implies
persistence in prayer. It doesn’t mean we have to go on and on and on about things to God. It does mean that when we
pray, we have to be serious about the task.
2) Pray with Patience
The
preacher, C.H. Spurgeon, said waiting was like a long sea journey that brought back treasure from distant lands. ‘Coasters’
were small boats that carried coal and ordinary things from port to port in the same country, hugging the coastline as they
traveled. But the great treasures came from the larger ships that sailed out
of sight on great oceans. The point being…some things are worth waiting for.
Be
patient. Prayers are answered in different ways. As we’ve seen…“Yes, but not now”… “No”…
or “Well, Yes, but nothing like in the way you expected”… are all valid answers. God’s agenda of importance differs from ours. Pray with persistence, pray with patience. And thirdly…
3) Pray to a Person.
Christian
prayer is not asking that the “Force will be with you.” We are not
channeling supernatural forces or seeking to be a conduit for some divine stream of consciousness. We address our prayers
to a heavenly Father, a Father who wants only the absolute best for all of His much loved and cherished children. In prayer we are seeking to meet with God up close and personal.
Why
are prayers not answered? Well, it all depends on what you mean by prayer and
what you mean by answering. If you are asking, “Why doesn’t God give us everything we ever dreamed of and run
the world in the way that we think is best,” then the answer is simple. There is a God. And it’s not you.
Prayer
is not trying to force God’s arm to do what we want, but rather an attempt to align our lives with the will of God.
In that process the desires of our hearts often need to be refined and redefined. Such a process cannot be determined by ‘Yes’
and ‘No’ answers.
The
problem of unanswered prayer is best approached by seeking to deepen our personal relationship with God, through Jesus Christ,
in the power of the Holy Spirit. The ‘Who’ of prayer is a whole lot more important than the ‘Why’
of prayer.
Trust
that when you pray, God knows best! It is in that framework that Jesus offers to us in these words: "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door
will be opened.”
