Do you ever feel that God does not pay attention to your prayers? Why does the bible tell me to pray yet when I do He often times seems silent, distant, and unwilling to answer me? I am not talking about trivial prayers like asking God for a parking place. I'm talking about sincere prayers in moments in times of desperate need. I have deeply wrestled with this the past three and a half years. I have been rocked with disappointment by my wife's and my own unanswered prayers.There have been many cries for help, believing earnestly that God would answer yet ended up feeling unheard. What do I do when I really believe that God is able and willing, yet in regards to my prayers, He seems the opposite.
I ask this serious question because I am a man of prayer. I take it seriously and have made prayer a default response to trouble as well as a way of life. Prayer for me is a habit, a reflex, and also seems to get results. I have experienced countless answers to my own prayers over my 39 years as a believer and I have seen numerous supernatural healings, Prayer is central in my life. I believe God hears and answers prayers.
Now with all that said, I still wrestle with unanswered prayer. unanswered prayer has hit some raw nerves for me. As I said, I pray because I believe that God hears and answers my prayers. I tell God my needs and He seems distant and aloof to my cries.
I have always taught others that God answers every prayer according to His will with a yes, no, or wait answer. It provides a rational, easy, simple, and workable answer to this troubling question. But...deep inside I have found this really hard for me to accept. Sure, there are many prayers that are not difficult for me to understand why God does not answer. I have witnessed my wife
begging God to heal her terribly crippling disorder, yet she still suffers. I asked God for many years to do a certain thing in my own life and when I rejoiced at His seeming answer for several years,
suddenly, the whole bottom fell out. What about your own unanswered prayers? Do you find yourself frustrated and crushed because no matter how earnest, no matter how hard, no matter how
believing, and no mater how long, God does not seem to answer. Sometimes God's. seeming silence is deafening.
Why did not God answer? I have given and heard many well meaning answers:
God has a plan for you
You need more faith
Perhaps there is unconfessed sin in your life
You must not be praying according to Gods will
You have not been tithing (heard that recently)
Your motives are wrong
Now there is undoubtedly some truth or half truth at times in all of those in regards to answered except the tithing one). But are any of those really helpful? Do they really help us to pray?
Then there are the promises the bible makes that are so huge and God does not seem to keep them a
that further exasperates the problem.
"And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened." Luke 11:9-10
"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will
do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Ifyou ask me anything in my name, I will do it."
John 14:12-14
My simple reading of these texts tells me this: If I pray. God will answer. So what do I conclude
when God does not answer my prayers? I pray because God tells me to pray and I pray because god promises to answer my prayers. We have the assurance of answered prayer from our Savior Jesus, Himself.
So what happens when my prayers are not answered? Is there anything that I can do about it? Is it my motives that is the problem? Could it be the ongoing sin in my life? Could it be that something is wrong with my faith? Could it be the way we say our prayers? Of course motives, faith, and the right words are important. But these also lead me into so much introspection and reflection that can paralyze my prayer life. Am I to blame every time? The fact is my motives are not perfectly pure ever. My faith is never perfect. And sometimes I don't say things so well. So the question that disturbs me is this, does God only answer the prayers of those with pure motives, perfect people, with perfect faith, and words spoken properly?
I cannot live with that kind of burden. It would paralyze my ability and desire to pray.
In fact, as far as I am concerned, it contradicts the very reason that we pray.
We pray as desperate, poor, broken, helpless, and needy people.It would seem to me to be unreasonably demanding if in order to be heard and answered by God I had to prove myself worthy by perfect living, motives, faith, and words. This is a burden that none of us can carry.
Jesus said in Matthew 17:20, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
This is His way of saying that little faith is required. Quantity is not the issue. The object of our faith is everything. Jesus is a mountain moving God. So faith is not the key, the object of who we put our tiny, minuscule faith is everything!
Faith trusts not in self but God. Faith comes poor, desperate, lacking self confidence,empty handed, insufficient, needy, empty, and lacking. Faith assumes we being nothing to God and need everything from God.
We must dare to pray even as we doubt, are disappointed, wavering, defeated, frustrated, and empty, just as the desperate father cried, "I do believe, help my unbelief," Mark 9:24
My simple reading of these texts tells me this: If I pray. God will answer. So what do I conclude
when God does not answer my prayers? I pray because God tells me to pray and I pray because god promises to answer my prayers. We have the assurance of answered prayer from our Savior Jesus, Himself.
So what happens when my prayers are not answered? Is there anything that I can do about it? Is it my motives that is the problem? Could it be the ongoing sin in my life? Could it be that something is wrong with my faith? Could it be the way we say our prayers? Of course motives, faith, and the right words are important. But these also lead me into so much introspection and reflection that can paralyze my prayer life. Am I to blame every time? The fact is my motives are not perfectly pure ever. My faith is never perfect. And sometimes I don't say things so well. So the question that disturbs me is this, does God only answer the prayers of those with pure motives, perfect people, with perfect faith, and words spoken properly?
I cannot live with that kind of burden. It would paralyze my ability and desire to pray.
In fact, as far as I am concerned, it contradicts the very reason that we pray.
We pray as desperate, poor, broken, helpless, and needy people.It would seem to me to be unreasonably demanding if in order to be heard and answered by God I had to prove myself worthy by perfect living, motives, faith, and words. This is a burden that none of us can carry.
Jesus said in Matthew 17:20, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
This is His way of saying that little faith is required. Quantity is not the issue. The object of our faith is everything. Jesus is a mountain moving God. So faith is not the key, the object of who we put our tiny, minuscule faith is everything!
Faith trusts not in self but God. Faith comes poor, desperate, lacking self confidence,empty handed, insufficient, needy, empty, and lacking. Faith assumes we being nothing to God and need everything from God.
We must dare to pray even as we doubt, are disappointed, wavering, defeated, frustrated, and empty, just as the desperate father cried, "I do believe, help my unbelief," Mark 9:24
True faith is tiny little light that rises up when darkness surrounds us and threatens to overwhelm us. I pray to this God I love and trust because He is God and I have no one else to turn to and know where else to turn. Yes, I am dissapointed. Yes I don't understand. But...I keep on praying.
I think of the sincere prayers so many have made that seemingly were not heard or answered. What went wrong? Was it sin, wrong motives, lacking faith or sincerity, wrong words? Why did God not answer my prayers? It's all a mystery. I'm not sure I'll ever know why or understand it. But this I do know: unanswered prayer is not the end of the story for you and me. Not as long as God is God.
Next week I'll share what I mean :)
I think of the sincere prayers so many have made that seemingly were not heard or answered. What went wrong? Was it sin, wrong motives, lacking faith or sincerity, wrong words? Why did God not answer my prayers? It's all a mystery. I'm not sure I'll ever know why or understand it. But this I do know: unanswered prayer is not the end of the story for you and me. Not as long as God is God.
Next week I'll share what I mean :)
5 comments:
I thought I was alone in my frustration over unanswered prayer. I often wonder like you, is it something I'm doing or not doing, sometimes I get frustrated, even angry with God! :(
I look forward to your next blog.
Song " Whatever it takes"
There's a voice calling me
From an old rugged tree
And it whispers draw closer to me
Leave this world far behind
there are new heights to climb
And a new place in me you will find.
Take my houses and land
change my dreams and all my plans
for I'm placing my whole life in your hands
Let the disappointments come Lonely days without the sun
lonely days without the sun
If through sorrow more like you I become.
Take the dearest things from me
if that's how it must be
to draw me closer to thee.
And if you call me today to a land far away
If through sorrow more like you I become.
For whatever it takes to draw closer to you Lord
That's what I'll be willing to do
For whatever it takes to be more like you
That's what I'll be willing to do
I'll trade sunshine for rain comfort for pain
Oh that's what I'll be willing to do
For whatever it takes, for my will to break
Oh that's what I'll be willing to do.
He ordains us to encounter weakness, that in those places. We would Seek but His Heart 2 ours! In our surrender of ours into His! Most of our prayers are in the flesh to take away this necessary weakness! Praying in the Sprit, is to seek the wondrous intimacy we can experience in Him now in the Mind of Christ that we have!
To dwell in Him, in whatever it takes!
Lord, take me where You want me to be, no matter what the cost!
And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “ My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
But as it is written:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
Thanks for the comments. I am glad that the Psalms often times communicate questions, struggles, and frustrations with God. I am glad that God loves me, understands, listens, and is there. I pray because He is God and I have nowhere else to go.
While I do not see every prayer answered, I now see, at 74 years of age more than ever. I do believe we can see every prayer answered as we become more in snync with what the Father is doing. Also sometimes some physical ailment is related to something that has happenen in the past, so that is good to explore as unforgiveness may be revealed that needs to be dealt with. God wants to heal the whole person. I do think a key is focusing more on God than what our petition might be. I think SOAKING in God's presence with a group helps get us to the place of KNOWING God's love, as well as worship, reading the Bible, and praying for people on the street. There is the discipline of BEHOLDING God which is such a faith builder. Then I think PERSISTENT prayer is necessary in some cases, such as cancer, for some reason. Most of us pray for what we want rather than seeking what God wants. Most of us give up. Do I ever pray in my prayers, "according to your will?" NEVER. If He has asked us to pray, we have to assume He wants to answer our prayers, or why bother. Do I pray long and involved prayers? No, as I think it is more about knowing how much God loves us and the person we are praying for. I also think it is very important to know our authority and use it in prayer. Ok that is my 2 cents worth.
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