THE PROBLEM OF UNANSWERED PRAYER

The following is an excerpt from my book,  A Life of Prayer.         

   Anyone who has begun to pray seriously will eventually question whether God truly hears and answers our prayers. We must turn to the Bible to learn the truth about prayer. We know that God desires communication with His creation. In the very beginning, God spent time walking and talking with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. After they rebelled, humans lost the intimate line of communication they had enjoyed. From that point on, it seems that God primarily spoke directly to those He wished to communicate with either by a mediated presence (theophany) or in dreams and visions.

            The bulk of the recorded prayers in the Bible are found in the Psalms, most of which were written from the time of David through the time Israel returned from captivity in Babylon. We know that prayer is an important activity because Jesus, the perfect human, spent many hours in prayer to His Father. He also told his disciples that they should pray after He completed His mission on earth and returned to the Father. There are numerous examples of prayers and encouragements to pray throughout the rest of the New Testament. It is these Scriptures that give us the most accurate information about prayer in our time.

The temptation is to take one or two verses of Scripture and apply them universally. Jesus did say, for example, that we can ask anything of Him, and He will do it (John 14:13). The context is about glorifying the Father, so the word “anything” is limited to only that which brings glory to God.  It goes without saying that one who believes in Jesus (also part of this context), would not ask for something that would be displeasing or dishonoring to God.

In his first epistle, John seems to double down on the concept of receiving anything we ask for saying, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” (1 John 5:14-15) The context here is asking “according to His will.” That is another way of saying that our requests must be only those which would bring glory to God.

Another passage that is often misunderstood is found in both Matthew and Mark. In Mark’s version, Jesus says, “whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). The limiting factor here is that you must “believe that you have received it.” Notice the verb tense of the word “received.” You must be utterly convinced that your request has already been granted in Heaven, and you are simply waiting for its fulfillment here on earth. A person can only have that kind of faith if there is absolute assurance that God has granted the request.

There is a way to be quite certain we are asking for what God wants: ask for those things which align with his revealed character and His will for His people. This can be accomplished by praying God’s word back to Him. For example, the Old Testament has repeated assurances that God will never forsake His obedient children. We can pray, “God, I thank you that you are with me in this situation because you have promised never to forsake me as I seek to follow your way.” Add to this the certainty that God is pleased to be praised and we can say, “God, I praise you even in this circumstance, knowing that you will go through it with me.”

There is a danger here that we may take something out of context and apply it to a situation for which it was not intended. This often happens with the statement by Isaiah which is quoted in the New Testament, “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases” (Isaiah 53:12; Matthew 8:17). Matthew makes it clear that this verse does not apply only to spiritual healing (ie. salvation), but that physical healing was also in view. However, it is illegitimate to insist that the taking of illness must apply immediately in every instance. Jesus did not heal every person in Israel. Not every lost soul will come to faith in Christ. His death on the cross made provision for both spiritual and physical healing, but it is up to God to dispense those benefits as He wishes. We are not out of line to ask for physical healing, but it is still God’s choice to honor the request.

            In his marvelous little book, Crafted Prayer, Graham Cooke says, “Prayer, in its simplest form, is finding out what God wants to do and then asking Him to do it.” (p.8) Cooke correctly observes, “We often find ourselves praying out of the shock or trauma of the situation itself and out of … our concern.” (p.1) I remember someone saying long ago that prayer is not about aligning God with our will but aligning our will with God. Instead of jumping straight into a prayer for healing or deliverance or whatever based on our concern, we should first thank God for His presence in times of trouble and wait for Him to reveal His good, sovereign will in the trouble.

            All of this demands that we study the Scripture to know God’s will and His heart. It also requires a time of silent meditation and listening as a regular practice of prayer. As I said before, mature prayer is a dialogue not a monologue. When we don’t know what to ask, we can still go through the first three steps of the ACTS model (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication), and then wait silently. God told the psalmist to, “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted in all the earth.” (Psalm 46:10) We do not need to rush into prayer of supplication or intercession; God is already more concerned with the situation than we will ever be, and He knows exactly what to do. We need only to quiet our minds and listen for His voice.

            There is another way that we can pray knowing God’s will is being honored: prayer in the spirit. In Paul’s letter to the Romans he said, “We do not know how to pray as one ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unexpressed groanings” (8:26). Some people believe this means that as we submit to God’s will in our prayers, the Holy Spirit takes our requests to the Father in accordance with His will. This is undoubtedly true.

However, there may be more to prayer in the spirit than just the Holy Spirit praying since the Greek word used of the Spirit’s praying generally refers to an actual sound. Romans 8:26 might be translated to say the Spirit “makes sounds that are unintelligible.”  Many people believe that a special prayer language utilizing our human voice is the expression of the Spirit of God aiding our human spirit to pray. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14 that when he speaks in a tongue, he is communicating directly with God (v. 2). He explains later in the chapter that when he prays in a tongue, it is his own spirit that prays, although his mind does not comprehend (v. 14). A prayer language is not essential for spirit led prayer because the Holy Spirit can lead our prayers spoken in the language we know. However, a prayer language can be helpful for those who choose to practice it.

I suspect that everyone has times of dryness in prayer or doubts the effectiveness of their prayers. The Psalms are full of cries to God where the writers wonder if God is hearing their impassioned pleas. Note that in most cases where doubt begins the Psalm, an expression of faith that God will hear and act follows. We also have the numerous promises in the New Testament to assure us that God indeed hears our prayers. Mature prayer becomes a trust-building exercise. For example, when James says that the “prayer of faith will save the sick” (James 5:1), we know that is true 100% of the time. What we don’t know is what time God will choose to heal – it may be right now, later in life, or not until the person is taken home to glory. The fact remains, ultimately, all sickness and disease will be healed.

In the same way, we know when we pray in accordance with God’s will that our prayers will be answered. This is true of prayers for healing, deliverance, protection, blessing or any other legitimate request. When I am waiting for the answer to something I believe is within God’s will, it comforts me to remember that God is not bound by time as I am. God was in the eternal present tense when He created the universe we call home for the time being. Time is a creation of God as surely as the earth and all the heavens. When God calls this age to a close, as Scripture promises He will, He will still be in His eternal present.

The Bible says God knows the end from the beginning. This is true because He exists at the end and the beginning at the same “time” since He exists independently from time. We must labor through the progression of minutes, days and years as human creatures, but God does not. When He promises that something will be accomplished, He can speak with utter confidence because He sees the completion as if it already occurred, because to Him, it has. Knowing this, I can pray and wait out the passage of human time with confidence that God has already seen the answer to my prayer.

I am not a man who is proud of his prayer life. I grew up in a Christian home in a time when families ate every meal together (imagine that!), and prayer before the meal was a privilege that was passed around: “Whose turn is it to pray?” I’m pretty sure I was taught to pray, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” before bed every night. Then there were prayers in church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday night. But honestly, these were all rituals to me; I don’t recall thinking of them as communication with the God who created everything.

When I was in my twenties, a religious revival swept over my family. My older sisters (all three of them) became involved in movements where prayer was something you did because you expected to accomplish something by it. They went to “church” and praised God with full voice and lifted hands and an excitement that was contagious. After a couple years of dancing around the fringes of their experience, along with two years of Bible college and hours of serious personal study and seeking God, I finally joined them. Some would say I was baptized with the Holy Spirit or filled with the Holy Spirit, but whatever you call it, it revolutionized my prayer life.

I wish I could say that I became a pray-without-ceasing kind of guy at that point, but that would be a lie. I prayed more often than I had been, and I prayed with the knowledge that God was actually listening. I completed two graduate degrees from Christian institutions which gave me sound foundational knowledge. I bought books on prayer encouraging praise and intercession and warfare, but there were still too many times when I had the feeling that the ceiling was the height to which my prayers rose and little more.

It wasn’t until I became more disciplined (think spiritual disciplines) that I began to feel as if there was power in my prayers. I began to use charts and lists and prayer partners to drive me to a consistency that had eluded me for years. I am not suggesting that everyone needs that kind of structure, but I did. Then I discovered the concept of “crafted prayer” which takes the Word of God and makes prayers from it. That was revolution number two.

As I read the Scripture daily (through the Bible in a year, typically), I began to find prayers everywhere. Since my three children and six grandchildren are on my daily prayer list, they became the focus of my crafted prayers. I don’t get to see them as often as I would like, so I don’t always know what’s happening in their busy lives. When you don’t know what to pray, pray Scripture. You can’t go wrong with that.

The basis of this book was a series of Sunday School lessons I wrote for the people I went to church with. A computer study and devotional program gave me 21^st century tools to fine-tune my regimen.  Retirement gave me the ability to spend as much time as I needed/wanted on my devotions and prayer. Eventually, I wanted to share what I have learned with others. I still frequently reach that point Paul mentions in Romans 8:26 where I, “don’t know how to pray as I must.” I know that the Holy Spirit prays on my behalf in ways that no program, no list, no earthly thing can accomplish. This is good. It keeps me praying. I pray you might find the same confidence and consistency in your life.