When Prayers Go Unanswered by Rev. David David (with an assist by Patti Lusher)

I don’t know what you think about prayer, but I’ve struggled at times with this issue of Unanswered Prayer.

Over the course of my ministry I’ve had various persons talk to me about unanswered prayer.

This is usually how the dialogue goes –

Pastor, I’ve been a faithful follower and Christian all my life.

But, I’ve never wrestled with the Will of God until my Dad died.

I’ve always thought God could and would do anything if enough people prayed.

And they did and God didn’t.

Who is God?

What good is God?

These are usually the types of questions that I encounter when people face unanswered prayer.

You pray and pray and pray…And you get 10 other churches to pray with you…

Help my loved one…help me find a job…take away this cancer.

And God seems silent!

What do you do with that?

Even, Jesus’ own words can confuse us.

6 different times in the Gospels we read words like these from Jesus:                                                           (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.”

What do you do with that?

6 different times Jesus promises…

Whatever you ask for in his name… believe that you will receive.

And yet, your Dad dies, your cancer doesn’t go away, your child still dies, you’re still out of a job, and your spouse still leaves you?

You see the tension here, don’t you?

So, if Jesus is promising us that whatever we ask, as long as we ask in faith, will be done to us,

Then, we have challenges, don’t we?

I haven’t found anyone that feels this passage works in the way that we read it at face value.

We don’t always get what we ask for when we pray.

So, we’re left with trying to understand why there are unanswered prayers.

So, if you go onto the web and Google:

Why are there unanswered prayers…you’ll get over 178,000 websites that will tell you why there’s unanswered prayers and many of them will tell you it’s your fault.

One website said there are 11 reasons why the prayers of believers go unanswered.

Here are just 4 of them:

1)  You are not seeking to please the Lord.

2)  You have unconfessed sin in your life.

3)  You pray with improper motives.

4)  You lack faith.

I find it interesting that when someone is walking through hell on earth…we’re going to blame them for God’s silence.

For the person who’s baby or Father just died…

Hey, look, they wouldn’t have died if you only had enough faith.

How much faith do you have to have in order to get God to do what you want?

Jesus says in these passages that…

If you have faith the size of a mustard seed.

In Mark’s Gospel, a father brings to Jesus his son who struggles with epilepsy.

The father says to Jesus…If you are able, would you please heal my son.

And Jesus responds:

If I’m able?

All things are possible to those who believe.

Do you remember the father’s response?

He says:

Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.  (Mark 9.14-29)

That’s how we pray, isn’t it?

We all experience doubts.

Most of us live in this world where we don’t have perfect faith.

But, Jesus didn’t ask for 95 % faith.

He just said faith the size of a mustard seed.

So, to blame someone for the tragedy in their life and say it was because they didn’t have enough faith is obscene.

But, how do we make sense out of this?

Well, I think there are 2 common responses.

One is to say that when Jesus was saying this …

He was speaking specifically to his disciples.

And they wrote it down, but it doesn’t apply to the rest of us.

That may be somewhat helpful.

But secondly, I think a better answer might be to understand how Jesus speaks.

When Jesus talks, He always speaks in what we might call “Prophetic Hyperbole”.

Prophetic means you say something bold.

And Hyperbole means you exaggerate so others get the point.

And Jesus is often talking this way.

And if we don’t take that into consideration, His words can be very confusing.

Think about it, we speak in hyperbole.

How often have I said to my daughter Jessica when she was growing up…

You can be anything you want to be.

Really… is that true?

She’s intelligent and really good at a lot of things.

But, I don’t think she knows a lick about changing the carburetor on her car.

So, did I lie to her when I told her that she could be anything she wanted to be?

No.

I was trying to teach her “don’t settle”.

Don’t have small dreams.

You have so much potential.

I’m so proud of you.

You can be “anything”…not literally, but …YES!

You see, this is hyperbole.

It’s okay because it’s trying to make a point.

Jesus does this all the time when He says…

When your hand causes you to sin…cut it off.

When your eye causes you to sin…gouge it out.

Does He really want us to cut off our hand or gouge our eye out?

No!

He wants us to recognize that sin is serious business.

He says…It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into heaven.

I’ve been to Africa and to Haiti.

And I don’t care what your income is or even if you’re on welfare.

All of us are rich compared to people who have to walk 20 minutes to drink dirty water and who make $300 per year.

That means none of us are going to heaven if it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

Then, what’s Jesus saying?

He’s not saying you’re not going to heaven.

He’s saying that money has a way of affecting your spiritual life.

So be aware…be afraid of that.

You see… Jesus understands this.

He knows that sin first begins in the heart.

So, Jesus is saying…Talk to God when you’re struggling.

Go to God and lay open your heart before God.

Ask God to help you get through the day.

Whatever you ask, believing…you shall receive.

There are 2 examples of unanswered prayer in the New Testament.

One … is Jesus Himself.

It’s the night before he’s to be crucified.

It’s right before he’s to be arrested that he’s in his favorite prayer place…the Garden of Gethsemane.

And Jesus prays…Father; please take this cup from me.

What’s he mean by the cup?

It’s the cup of suffering.

Please don’t let me go through this suffering.

But, Jesus also prays…Yet, not my will, but yours be done.

God doesn’t cause suffering.

But, I believe that God can use our suffering to help us change the world.

We call this “redemptive suffering”.

God used the torture and the crucifixion of Jesus to redeem us all.

It was an unanswered prayer that changed the world for ever.

The Apostle Paul had an unanswered prayer.

In II Corinthians he says:

Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.

Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me,

‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’

So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.    (II Corinthians 12.7-10)

What was the thorn in the flesh?

Some scholars think it was macular degeneration.

Paul on his missionary journeys was going blind.

And he’s praying –

God; please don’t let me lose my eyesight.

How am I going to go out and preach the gospel if I lose my eyesight?

3 times he prays…Please, please God, help me!

And God says…

I’m not going to intervene and break the laws of nature that I’ve established to restore your eyesight.

I’m not going to give you a miracle.

Instead, I’m going to continue to walk with you Paul.

And you will be dependent on me.

In your weakness, you will be made strong.

You will continue to proclaim the Gospel.

And it will even have more of an impact because you proclaim it as a man who’s going blind.

We don’t know if it was macular degeneration.

Maybe it was something else.

But, what I love about this… is that it leaves it open to whatever you struggle with.

Whatever it is, it may be God saying …

I am so sorry for the pain you’re walking through.

But, I’m going to walk with you in the midst of it.

And we’re going to see if the glory of God might not be revealed through it.

I know that someday I will die and most likely, I will die of some disease or physical condition.

I know that I will want to be healed of whatever it is.

But, my greater prayer is that whether I live or die, that the glory of God might be revealed in me.

And this finally leads me along with Garth Brooks to say:

Thank God for unanswered prayers.

So that leads me to ask you these questions:

What should we pray for?

What is prayer anyway?

How does this whole thing work?

If we’re not going to pray for whatever we want, then God’s not going to give us whatever we want, when we want it, when we ask for it.

So, let me share with you how I think prayer works.

After 40 years of pastoral ministry, I’ve learned a couple of things about how prayer works that have helped me.

First –

God typically works within the ordinary things rather than working a miracle.

God created and works within the laws that govern our planet.

And God created us to go govern the earth.

God works within us, which means that in all likelihood, you are daily called to be the answer to someone else’s prayer.

So, when God’s going to answer someone’s prayer, God’s going to send a doctor or a nurse, or someone to come alongside them as a companion.

When someone’s hungry, God calls churches to put together food drives or a Community Meal Program.

When people are sick, God calls doctors to be in the helping professions.

My in-laws were driving to Florida last year and they stopped for dinner along the way.

During the beginning of the meal, my father-in-law stopped breathing.

At the table next to them were 2 doctors who had said to themselves earlier – that they didn’t feel like going out to dinner and almost didn’t, but did so anyway.

They jumped up and did CPR and called the EMS and basically saved his life

Was it a coincidence or was it a God-incidence?

I’m not sure.

But, God works through ordinary means and ordinary people.

So, skeptics will say:

That just would have happened anyway.

But, you say:

Well, maybe.

But, I’m here and I’m grateful for that.

And God worked through all of this process.

Let me ask you this…

As you look at that, do you think God was any part of that?

Was God playing any role in those 2 doctors deciding to go to dinner and choosing that particular restaurant that night at that particular time?

Imagine if my mother-in-law had said to the doctors:

Oh no, don’t do CPR.

I’m waiting for a miracle.

God’s going to save him.

OR do we recognize the miracle right before our eyes?

You see, those doctors were the answer to my mother-in-law’s prayer.

Which means we have to pay attention.

Because part of our job in life is to be the answer… to someone else’s prayers.

You wake up every day and you watch to see… how can I do that?

Now, the second thing I’ve come to understand is that –

God will not suspend another person’s free will to answer my prayers.

If I say to God:

God make my brother be more loving to me.

Is that prayer going to be answered?

No, God won’t make him do anything.

God’s going to invite him, woo him, and beckon him.

God will bring people along his path to talk to him about his relationships.

But, God will not force my brother to be more loving to me against his will.

So, when I pray to God to change my brother’s heart so that he will be more loving.

God’s not going to change his heart.

My prayer might need to be –

God, make me more loving to my brother.

Or help me be more patient and supportive to my brother.

The third thing is that –

God usually doesn’t take us out of the evil, but instead walks with us through it.

Sometimes, God will remove us from the pain and the tragedy.

But, most often, God walks with us through it.

Which is what was promised in Isaiah when God said:

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.

 (Isaiah 43.2 NLT)

The Psalmist understood it when he said:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me.  (Psalm 23.4)

God’s ordinary way is – Life is hard.

Things happen.

We lose our job.

Our loved one dies.

God doesn’t always miraculously intervene.

But, God instead says:

I’m going to walk with you.

And I’m not going to leave you.

And you don’t have to be afraid.

God’s not promising to always make it all better.

In the end, God does.

But, not always in our timing.

So, in conclusion, the other question is –

What is prayer actually?

Prayer is not and God is not a “vending machine”.

We often treat prayer that way.

We ask God for stuff and then God doesn’t give it to you or does give it to you.

Does it really work that way?

Is God like a vending machine in the sky and you plug your prayers in here and you get out what you want at the bottom?

Or have we missed the point of prayer?

Perhaps prayer is like entering into a relationship.

Or yielding our lives to God.

…Less of a transaction and more of an investment or even a communion.

Perhaps prayer is not a way that we instruct God on how to run the world, but more like having a conversation with God.

Perhaps prayer is a way that we crawl up into God’s lap when we face pain and tragedy and God holds us tight until we feel safe and secure again.

I remember when I went through a very dark time in my life.

I was in a pit where I turned away from God and I had no hope.

And in the midst of my darkness, I realized that the only hope I had was God.

And the bottom held in the midst of that pit.

And my friends came alongside me and they carried me.

They encouraged me.

And they allowed me room and space to ask questions and to be angry with God.

And they still loved me.

And I stopped asking the question why.

And I started to ask the question “What Now”?

And God sustained me.

And healed me.

And strengthened me.

And as time went by, I have been placed in situations where I have been able to walk with others through their valley of the shadow of death.

And out of my pain, I have been able to answer someone else’s prayer.

WWII Admiral Chester Nimitz near the end of his life spoke about the number of unanswered prayers in his life.

This is what he said:

“In my life I asked God for strength that I might achieve.

But I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health that I might do great things.

I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

I asked God for riches that I might be happy.

I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.

I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.

I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.

I am, among all men, most richly blessed.”

And that I think is how prayer works.

So, let’s pray:

God, thank you for loving us. Hold us tight and never let us go. Lord God, take the painful things of the past and bring good from them. Lead us and guide us each day. And help us to remember that you walk with us every day. Open our eyes that we may see how we can be the answer to someone else’s prayer. Hold us Lord and don’t let us go.

For it’s in your Holy name we pray, Amen!