Anyone listening - Unanswered Prayers - Pt1

Romans 11:1-6 NIV

SCRIPTURE

“ ¹ I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. ² God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: ³ “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? ⁴ And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”⁵ So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. ⁶ And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.”       

OBSERVATION

Have you ever felt as if God is not listening?  As if you’ve been rejected by Him for some unknown reason? Reflecting on a personal journal entry from 2002; in which, my wife and I journeyed down the road of pain and disappear - as our second child’s heart ceased - I wrote the following, “I had never wrestled with the will of God to the point of anger, rage, pain, and disappear. Now it’s not only my life that is affected by what Your allowing but my wife’s!  I had always thought that You could and would do anything if enough people prayed—but in the midst of our prayers You seemed to choose to remain silent and distant. Are you there? What good are You God - if you will not show up and save the innocent? ..... ...... ...... Where are You to be found in the midst of pain and suffering?” - Trevor L Drinen

During the follow days I attempted to take a global viewpoint on my questions.  This experience led my wife and I through a journey of pain almost to the point of turning away from our faith and to stop believing in the existence of a God that pursues us. 

Many people throughout the world struggle with their faith because of God’s silence and apparent impotence when they cry out to Him in their time of greatest need. What makes these unanswered prayers even more disturbing is the fact that some Christians claim God regularly answers their prayers for things that seem of no consequence. I think of the individuals who prayed to find a parking space as they entered the mall parking lot and,“Thanks be to God!” a space opened up on the front row. Or the professional athlete who points to the heavens after catching a touchdown pass. Or a surfer who patiently waits for the perfect wave.  Does God answer prayers for parking spaces, touchdown passes, and ridable waves, but not for those who have cancer or whose unborn children will die without a miracle?

It was at the low I turned and began to look at Jesus’ outlook on prayer.  It was in the midst of my journey that I discovered that my personal disappointment was the result of unmet expectations. I expected God to save!  I expected God to heal!  I expected God to move on my behalf! .... .... and so have countless others through out time (Example: Jews).

APPLICATION

In the case of prayer, our expectations are shaped in part by Jesus’ words in a handful of passages like Matthew 21:21-22: “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt ... even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done. Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.”

At first glance Jesus seems to be promising here to do whatever we ask, provided we have faith. We read this and other promises like this on the lips of Jesus, and we cannot help but be confused when our prayers go unanswered. When we pray for a friend who is dying or for the safety of our children or for a job to open up for us, we are left confused when our friend dies, we go for months without employment or something happens to our children. Some Christians explain the reason these prayers go “unanswered” or “fail” has to do with the individual praying.  Yes, they placing the blame on you.  Others have gone to the extent of listing several common reasons why prayers may go unanswered.

- You have unconfessed sin in your life - You pray with improper motives - You lack faith

I find this list obscene and offensive! To say that God would have answered our prayers for our unborn child if only I had more fully sought to please God, or if I had confessed my sins, is not only unbiblical, misguided, and cruel. It does not line up with God’s character!  Did blind Bartimaeus, whom Jesus healed outside of Jericho, seek to please the Lord in everything? Did he stop to confess his sins before asking for his eyesight? Yet Jesus healed him (see Mark 10:46-51). Jesus heals because He is holy, not because those He heals are holy. To explain that God does not answer our prayers because we are not holy enough is unbiblical and does not aline with faith built upon grace!  At the foundation of a Christians faith is a Savior gave His life for us “while we were yet sinners” (Romans 5:8), and which teaches that we are saved by God’s grace.

What about faith? What about the power of prayer?  Prayer is an action faith. Faith is the act of trusting that God hears, that God cares and that God is able to act as we cultivate a genuine relationship with Him through prayer. Jesus asks that we pray with faith, that we trust as we pray.

If then unfulfilled prayer is not the result of my failure to live for Christ, unconfessed sin in my life, or inadequate faith.  Then what are we to make of the fact that our prayers are sometimes unanswered? 

Perhaps the answer is not found in what we do wrong when we pray, but in our failure to understand what Jesus meant when He said that we could move mountains and have whatever we ask for if we pray with faith. When Jesus spoke, He almost always did so using a figure of speech called hyperbole. Hyperbole is an overstatement or exaggeration to make a point. This was the language of prophets and first-century teachers. Our problem maybe within reading His words “hyper-literally” when we need to read them hyperbolically. To read them hyperbolically means we take Jesus seriously, but not always literally.  “Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive” (Matthew 21:22). Were these words a promise to be taken literally and mechanistically, or are they a hyperbolic statement inviting Jesus’ followers to pray boldly and with faith? This is the same passage in which Jesus tells His followers that by faith they can move mountains; that might help us to see that it is the latter way in which we are meant to read this passage.  Jesus’ hearers understood that Jesus was speaking hyperbolically when He said, “Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.” I think they understood that Jesus was saying, “Go to God with your burdens! Be bold when you pray! Trust that God hears your prayers! And, in ways you don’t fully understand, God will see you through this situation you face.”

Where does that leave me as I barry my unborn child, deal with the internal pain, and attempt to comfort my wife?  How does God answer prayer? What is the purpose of prayer? What should we pray for? How does God answer prayer?  Why does God answer some prayers and not others? Does God answer prayer? Some, but not all? Sometimes, but not all the time? Or does God always answer prayer and it's just that sometimes God says no. Is prayer more than God listening and answering?  Is God is going to do what God is going to do - if so why pray?  If God can do anything why doesn’t He?  

When God wants something done, God typically sends people. God’s customary way of working in our lives is through what appear to be ordinary ways. Rather than suspending the laws of nature that God created and bypassing the human beings that God created to do God’s work, God typically works through natural laws and through people. In the Bible, this is how God most often worked, and it is how God typically works today. I believe that miracles can happen and do happen. On some occasions, God miraculously and directly intervenes in the world, but most often God works through us, calling and nudging us into action, working in our hearts to be the instruments God uses to answer the prayers of others.  I have come to appreciate the idea that God intends us to be the answer to one another’s prayers to come alongside those who are in need of comfort. How and why?  If God desires a cultivate a genuine growing healthy relationship with His creation, then would He not have His creation do that for each other?  

None of this implies that God never works miracles. God can do the miraculous. But miracles are miracles because they are rare. God’s primary way of working in our world is to influence us and others—giving us peace and strength, wisdom and patience—while using the natural means God created to accomplish God’s purposes. God can work miracles! Is it not a miracles that works through the hands of doctors, the words of counselors, the presence of friends: in other words, miracles happen everyday and for me to place my personal expectations on God is unfair - no matter the pain I may encounter.

God is unfair - no matter the pain I may encounter.

So, if God is sovereign why do prayers go unanswered??  I don’t know.... .... .... does unanswered prayers, unmeet expectations, or the lack of personal understanding bring one to the conclusion that God must not exists?  

Romans 11:11-12 states, “¹¹ Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. ¹² But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring!”

At my point of anger, rage, pain, and disappear I come to trust God holds and sees the bigger picture. 

PRAYER

Thanks for reminding me of: A) who You are B) Your purpose (salvation to all) C) my involvement (faith & action / works). God, thank You so much for Your timeliness guarantees & evidence via Your invisible attributes, eternal power, divine nature since the creation of the world so that all may know you. Trevor