Introduction
Today we are going to continue our series aimed at how God's will can be at work in a world with suffering, evil, and unanswered prayers, and where can we find God in all of this. Today we are going to concentrate on the aspect of unanswered prayer. Specifically why this happens, what it means, and what our response should be.
Unanswered Prayer Can Be Devastating
There was woman that wrote her pastor because she was struggling with the question of unanswered prayer. She and her husband had been trying to have a baby for a long time. For years they had both been praying and praying that God would bless them with a baby. They went through fertility treatments and kept trying and kept praying and finally they were pregnant. It was wonderful! God had finally blessed them with a baby. But almost from the start of the pregnancy she was very sick. This lasted for several months and finally by the fifth month she was so deathly sick the doctors said you have two choices. You can either continue to carry this baby and both you and the baby will die or you can end the pregnancy now. But you cannot continue in the hope that both you and your baby are gonna live. She prayed about this and thought about this and her response was that she would rather die than end the pregnancy. Her family, her father, her mother, and her husband, talked about this and decided that they were not going to let her die. That was not going to happen. The pregnancy was terminated. The mother spent the next two weeks in intensive care in the hospital and it was touch a go at times for the mother whether she would survive. Finally after three months of bed rest at home she was able to go back to work and to begin resuming an ordinary life. But it was not an ordinary life. She said for the first time in her life she really began to struggle with her faith. She had always been raised in the church and always been a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. She wrote in her email, “I had never wrestled with the will of God. Now my life and faith depended upon it. I had always thought God could and would do anything if enough people prayed. But people had and God didn't. Who was God? What good is God?” These were the questions that she asked. She finally found herself so troubled by what had happened that she turned away from God and stopped believing in God. Now that may lead you to be a bit surprised when you find out that this woman had been to seminary and was the senior pastor at a church when this happened. She stopped believing in God because she could not understand how this could happen when all these people had been praying and yet her baby still died.
This is a serious question, the question of unanswered prayer. Especially when we see others experiencing no problems at all and we are stuck in the mire. Especially when we have no job, can't pay the bills, and see no end to this misery. We do the best we can to understand why. We even go straight to Christ, straight to the red words of the New Testament for answers. Now, I don't know about you but I sometimes struggle and get confused by Christ's words. For example, take Matthew 21:21-22, “Jesus replied, truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt...you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Really, move a mountain? Have you tried that lately? Did it work? Do you see the struggle that people have with this?
How many of you have experienced unanswered prayer? I sure have! So in my research I did what I sometimes do when I have a question, I Goodsearched it, you know that alternative to Google that we use here to help fund our ministries, and I came up with 823,000 results. And the kicker was that most of them tried to tell me that it was my fault. One website listed 11 reasons why prayers are not answered and here are a few of them. You are not seeking to praise the Lord. You have unconfessed sin in your life. You pray with improper motives. You lack faith. Why do we take someone that is walking through hell on earth and try to blame them for their hell on earth and for God's silence.
I think back to Mark chapter 9. For those of you participating in my Bible Challenge, you read this passage this past Monday. A father brings his son to Jesus. A son that is possessed by evil spirits that cause this young man to convulse violently and at times has even tried to harm the boy. The father asks Jesus, “if you can do anything to help.” Jesus replied, “if I can?” Everything is possible for one who believes” (Mark 9:21b-23). Do you remember the father's response? “I believe; help my unbelief.” That is my prayer each and every day. God help my unbelief. None of us have perfect faith. Jesus did not ask for perfect faith. Just faith the size of a mustard seed. To blame someone for the tragedy in their life and say they did not have enough faith is obscene. But then what do we make of this? Jesus said to ask for whatever you want and if you have faith and do not doubt, it will be done for you.
There are two ways to look at this. One is that Jesus was speaking to a specific group of people at a specific period of time about a specific type of issue. The other is to say that Jesus spoke in what we call prophetic hyperbole. Prophetic means that you say something bold without worrying about how it will hold up in all situations. The point is to shock people into listening. Hyperbole means to exaggerate to make a point. Jesus almost always speaks in this way. If you do not understand that then Jesus' words can often be confusing.
Today we still speak in hyperbole. Parker is beginning to dream about what he wants to be when he grows up. So I tell him, just as my parents did for me, son, you can be anything you want to be. Am I lying to Parker when I tell him that he can be anything he wants to be, knowing some things will be out of his reach or ability? No! I am trying to say to him don't settle. Don't have small dreams. You have such potential and I am so proud of you. You can be anything! Not literally...but yes. This is hyperbole. It is not lying; it is trying to make a point. Jesus does this all the time. So if your hand causes you to sin, Jesus says to cut it off. If your eye causes you sin, Jesus says to gouge it out. Now does Jesus want us to really cut off our hands and gouge out our eyes? No, Jesus wants us to recognize that sin is serious business.
Even Jesus Had Unanswered Prayer
I want us to consider one important example in the New Testament of unanswered prayer. Did you know Jesus had unanswered prayer? It is the night before Jesus is to be crucified. Hours before He is to arrested he goes to His favorite prayer place, the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. He takes a few of the disciples with him and begins to pray. I love the power of this passage in Luke. Jesus prays, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” What is this cup? It is the cup of suffering. It is being arrested. It is being tried by the Sanhedrin. It is being spit upon and beaten. It is His back being ripped apart by the whips of the Roman guards. It is being tortured and crucified for six hours, hanging their naked and dying in pain. Father, please take this from me. I know there is redemptive power and purpose in this but please do not make me do this. But Jesus also prays, “...yet not my will, but thy will be done”. It is important for us to recognize that unanswered prayer is not always bad. Unanswered prayer can be redemptive, as it was with Jesus. It can draw us closer to God, to each other, and transform us so that we can be more God-like.
What is Prayer?
So that leaves us with the question, if some prayers go unanswered then what do we pray for and how does this whole thing work if God is not always going to give us what we want, when we want, and when we ask for it. Based upon my experience and the experience of other people I have spoken with I want to pass along a few ideas.
One, God typically works within the ordinary things rather than working a miracle. God created this world and the physical laws within it so God works within them. God created humanity to govern this Earth so God works within us. Which means that in all likelihood you are daily called to be the answer to someone elses prayer! When God is going to answer the prayer of someone God is going to send a doctor or a nurse or a caring soul to be their companion. When people are hungry God is going to call on churches to help supply that food like we do with Interfaith and picking at Joe's.
One day I was walking Wesley to school I noticed one of the teachers that worked there outside the building crying. I took Wesley in and then when over to see if I could help her. She began to explain to me that her divorce had just been finalized a month ago and her ex-husband was not keeping up his end of the financial agreement. She was $300 behind on a utility bill that he never paid but it was in her name. Her power was going to be turned off at 5pm and her and her two children were going to be without heat. She had been to several churches and agencies over the last two weeks and no one could help. She asked for an advance at work and was told it was not possible. She was lost and hopeless. Her prayers had gone unanswered. I was able to help her from our benevolence fund. I do not know if it was coincidence or a God-incidence that I saw her and walked over. But we got it worked out and she was able to keep her power on. I have heard stories from a lot of you how you have filled that same role for another. We have to be willing to show up and pay attention and God will use us to answer prayer.
Another thing I have learned is that God will not suspend the free will of another to answer my prayers. I have one prayer for my boys. That they will grow up and have a vibrant active relationship with Jesus Christ. After all you would think with both parents being preachers that would be a given right? I pray for that, Debbie and I encourage that, but I understand that no matter what I do God will not force either of them into that relationship. God will beckon to them, God will woo them, God will seek them out and put people in their path to talk them about their faith But ultimately it is their decision.
Finally, God doesn't usually remove us from the evil but will walk through it with us. When the economy goes under and unemployment goes up or when we are faced with death and uncertainty, God generally does not pull us out of it, but walks through it with us as our constant companion. This is what we find promised in Isaiah when God says, when you walk through the flood waters I will be with you. When you pass through the flames I will be with you. The Psalmist got it right when they said, “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil. For you are with me.” We have never been promised a perfect life, just a connected one.
Now this is not to say that God does not work miracles. I have witnessed them, I pray for them, many of you have seen them too. It is just that they do not happen all of the time. But what does happen all of the time is that God walks with us, sustains us, and carries us.
Conclusion
Remember the young mother and pastor we talked about earlier that lost her baby? There was more to her email. She wrote, “I went through a very dark place. I was in this pit where I turned away from God and I had no hope. And in the midst of the darkness I realized that only hope I had was God. The bottom held in the midst of that pit and my friends came along side me and they carried me and 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 began to realize that was God's love. I stopped asking the question 'why' and I began to ask the question 'what now'. God sustained me and healed me and strengthened me. Some time when by and she received word that there were two little girls in Russia who where praying for a mommy. And out of her pain she traveled to Russia and answered their prayers. Unanswered prayer can and always will be tough. But when we recognize that it happens, that it can be a opportunity to be transformed, and that God is with us through it, there is hope. When we realize that we can be the answer to another's prayer, there is God. On the front of your bulletin today is a poem entitled “Unanswered Prayers”. It reads “I asked God for strength that I might achieve. I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for health that I might do greater things. I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked 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.”
I think that is how prayer works...so let's pray.
Prayer:
God, thank you for loving me.
Hold me tight and don't let me go.
Lord, take the painful things of the past and bring good from them.
Lead me and guide me each day and help me remember you walk with me.
Open my eyes to see how I can be the answer to someone else's prayer
Hold me Lord, do not let me go.
Amen.
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