It’s been said that unanswered prayer is a mystery. I agree. God urges us to pray, but sometimes we don’t get what we pray for. This is not an easy theological problem.
God, who promises answers to prayer–especially sincere, persistent, prayers–sometimes doesn’t seem to answer them, at least in the way we want.
We have Jesus’ Parable of the Persistent Widow in mind (Luke 18:1-8). There, he urged persistence in prayer; showing his disciples “that they should always pray and not give up” (vs. 1).
Another passage I’ve kept in mind is Isaiah 62:6-7, “… You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.”
“Give him [God] no rest…” This seems like an encouragement to bombard heaven with prayers until you get what you want.
Persistence in prayer is encouraged. One advantage of having to be persistent is that we have a chance to ‘sift’ the prayers–weeding out selfish motives and making sure our prayers are truly for something good.
Sometimes I’ve gotten what I prayed for. Sometimes I didn’t.
Right now, I’ve praying for something that, I truly believe, has no downside. In my eyes it is a big-ticket issue. There is nothing wrong with it.
Yet I still haven’t received it, and I have no sense of assurance that I will.
What do I do about this?
The other day I remembered a similar instance from over 20 years ago (or maybe even 25 years ago). It was over a different matter, but similar in that it was something I really wanted. I had prayed hard, but didn’t receive the answer.
Looking back, I’ve had some distance from that disappointment and can have some perspective on it. Though the disappointment was painful, I can now see some advantage in not getting what I wanted. To successfully navigate a big, unanswered prayer contributes to personal depth and maturity. You will not appreciate at the time but will later.
When we pray with all the sincerity and persistence we can muster and still don’t get what we want, it will leave a kind of scar. It’s a wound in our wrestling with God (like Jacob wrestling with the angel–Genesis 32:22-25). Jacob was wounded and forever changed. It seemed to mark a greater depth in his walk with God. But it cost him some pain.
You get a scar from the disappointment, but the scar is okay. It’s even, from the long-term perspective, good.
Scars are not open wounds. Physical scars remind us of past injuries, but they’re past. Scars are testimonies that we joined the battle; that we did not play it safe.
The spiritual life is form of battle. There is a devil, a fallen world, temptations, hostility…how can we not have some scars from all this?
It helps to know that even Jesus himself once had to endure an unanswered prayer. “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done,” (Luke 22:42). Jesus asked that he might be spared the agonies of the cross, but his prayer was not answered. He had to endure it because it was the Father’s will.
If Jesus–God in the flesh–had an unanswered prayer, so will we.
And, Paul, famously, had his ‘thorn in the flesh’ (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Even persistent prayer didn’t work to remove it. Instead, God allowed him to endure that unpleasant thing to keep him humble and to keep him relying on God’s strength rather than his own.
All Christians eventually discover that God is not a giant vending machine producing candies for free. He is about fashioning us for useful service. That involves a mix of victories and failures, joyful times and frustrations. You grow as a Christian by successfully handling all of it–not getting proud at the good things nor angry about the bad things. This makes you more useful to others. Who would you want as a counselor: someone who seems to have a charmed life or someone who successfully endured the wounds from their own personal battles?
When we look back on the history of our Christian life, we will probably be glad for the scars, the battles, and the unanswered prayers. We see God’s wisdom. He is making deep and mature disciples who will be more useful to Him because of what they went through.
The deepening of our faith is more important than getting what we want. God is willing to withhold some things–even good, legitimate things–in order to get that greater prize. So, before you get too angry with God over an unanswered prayer, remember that he has something bigger in mind.