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Can you think of a prayer you’ve consistently prayed for months or years, and that hasn’t (yet) been answered with a “yes”? How have you responded to that? How has it made you feel about God and about prayer?

The reality of unanswered prayer

All of us experience unanswered prayer – and if we haven’t yet, we will at some point in the future.

Perhaps you’ve been praying for something you think you need – a new job, a spouse, a particular possession, more money, healing, the removal of a particular temptation – but you haven’t received it. It may be that there was a clear “no” – you were praying for a particular job but someone else was appointed; or there’s no clear-cut answer but it hasn’t been a “yes” yet, and you’re still waiting or the opportunity has passed you by.

Perhaps you have a particular dream or hope, or you’ve been given insight into what might be your future – but it hasn’t happened. You’re still waiting. Perhaps there’s a situation in your family or church or community or the world you’d love to be changed.

Whatever the unanswered prayer is you have in mind (and speaking personally, I have many!) – it feels like being in a desert: You experience a gap between how you long for things to be – or even what you think God has promised – and your experience of reality. You feel that you are wondering in a wilderness, looking to the horizon for some sign of an answer.

How do you respond to this? Some people turn their back on God; some grow cynical about whether it’s worth praying; some grow bitter towards God. Some even wonder whether God hears at all.

A way forward: Know your God

What might be a way forward in coping with unanswered prayer? Know your God: what he’s like, how he works, and what his purposes are. As we know our God, we’ll be raised to a new level of spiritual experience in the midst of unanswered prayer. Consider these three examples from the Bible:

Looking to God in the darkness – The Psalms

The Christian experience is like the Nike logo – a swoosh – you go down and then up; and it’s the same in the Psalms. Book 3 – Psalm 73-89 – is the low point: God’s people are on the ropes because of the consequence of their sin and their enemies who are overwhelming them. It feels as they’re at the end of the road, as though a death has occurred. But in book 4 – Psalm 90-106 – things begin to look up – there’s a sudden resurrection. And the focus of book 4 is God. God who is eternal, loving and forgiving, good, who keeps his promises, is the all powerful judge.

Waiting on God – Joseph

In the book of Genesis, Joseph has a dream that he will rule over his brothers. But then everything goes wrong for him: He’s sold into slavery in a foreign country; and he’s sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. For 13 years God is silent, and Joseph has to wait. If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time you’ll know that waiting is a huge part of the Christian life – above all waiting for Jesus to return and to deal with the mess in the world and take us to be with him forever. But of course we know how it ends for Joseph – he is raised up by God two be second highest ruler in Egypt.

Choosing to submit to God’s will – Jesus

Perhaps the supreme example of unanswered prayer in the Bible is the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane:

“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Mark 14:36

“Father – I can’t bear what is about to happen. If there’s any way other than the cross of suffering – please provide it. But not my will but yours.” Luke tells us he was in such anguish that he sweat drops of blood. But heaven is silent and so he submits to arrest, trial, scourging and crucifixion. If ever we’re tempted to think “God doesn’t know what it’s like to experience unanswered prayer” – let us remember the Garden of Gethsemane.

Moving forward in the face of unanswered prayer

With those three examples of people who knew their God in our minds, I’d like to share seven ways forward – from my own experience, but also with a helping hand from Pete Greig’s book ‘How to pray.’ I hope something will resonate and be helpful to you in your own lived experience of unanswered prayer.

1, Be convinced God is good / Cultivate a thankful heart

Is your natural temperament more positive or negative? Do you see a glass half-full or half-empty? When it comes to God, we all have a half-empty tendency. Think of the first temptation in the Garden of Eden – “Did God really say you must not eat…?” There’s a sense in which the first temptation is to doubt the goodness of God – that God loves us and wants what’s best for us. And we’ve been doubting it ever since.

Personally, I can say that believing that God is good, and cultivating thankfulness, is one of the most important things God’s done in my heart over the past few years. When I get up in the morning, one of the first things I do is to think of 10 things to thank God for. I seek to meditate on God’s goodness. I keep a record of prayers God has answered. We need to believe God is good and be thankful to him; because there’s a real danger that one of the first casualties of unanswered prayer is our conviction that God is good.

2, Be present and real with your friends and church family

When life is hard and our prayers aren’t being answered we’re tempted to avoid people; but this isn’t good for us. Consider Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He knows he’s going to face this moment of anguish – and he takes his 3 close friends with him:

He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled.

Mark 14:33

As well as company and encouragement, there are other blessings of being present with friends. We’ll find God often ministers to us through others: Perhaps they share an encouraging bible verse that’s just right for our situation; perhaps their listening ear, or their advice, gives us a new perspective on a situation.

3, Be honest with God

It’s even more important to open up to God – he is the one who is able to make a difference in our situation. Of course if we’re upset with God, this can be very difficult; but it’s vital to keep the channels of communication open and to be honest with him.

There are many examples in the Bible of people being brutally honest with God (see also posts on Lament). God doesn’t condemn Job for his honest questions and even accusations towards God and his mysterious ways.

But perhaps the supreme example of honesty is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. God the Father and Son had worked out a plan of salvation in eternity – Jesus knew he had to die for their plan to be enacted. But when the time came to go through with the hardest part of all he asked permission to find another way.

“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you…”

Mark 14:36

So if you’re finding it hard to be honest with your heavenly Father, remember Jesus – God himself – set an example for you to follow.

4, Live in God’s love for you

When we face unanswered prayer or suffering, we’re tempted to think either that God doesn’t love us, or he isn’t powerful enough to help us, so we need to consider each of these in turn.

How do we live in God’s love for us? You and I need to be continually reminded that God loves us deeply. He loves you so much that he sent his Son to die for you.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

God loves you so much that Jesus endured the unanswered prayer of Gethsemane because that was what he needed to do to save you and to bring you into eternal friendship with him.

This means that whatever happens – and whatever prayers remain unanswered – God’s love for you is not in doubt. Through faith you’re united to Christ, so that when God looks at you he sees Jesus and loves you as he loves his Son. And yes you might suffer – just as his Son suffered – but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.

5, Be reminded of God’s power

We need to keep coming back to the reality that God is powerful, and is in charge. And of course we see this reality not in the world, but in the Bible. For example:

(The LORD) sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.

Isaiah 40:22

Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.

Psalm 115:3

Things are not as they seem – God is supremely powerful in the world. And that means that when prayer isn’t answered it’s not because he’s not powerful enough, or because he doesn’t love us – he must have another purpose. In particular:

6, Recognise God’s greatest purpose for you

Each of us needs to grow in the conviction that God has something in mind for us that is more important than our job, our health, our human relationships and everything else. He wants us to be like Christ:

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

Romans 8:29

We know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

I John 3:2

This is our future – to be like Christ. And it is the best thing for us, for Christ is perfectly holy, perfectly happy, and perfectly loving. He perfectly knows his Father’s love for him. Because our Father loves us, he wants that more than anything else for us, and if it means that other prayers need to go unanswered for that to happen then so be it.

Incidentally, there’s no point comparing our lives to other people, because each of us is different and our Father has a different plan and purpose for each one of us. You might say that each of us has a personal spiritual fitness trainer, and he’s planned out a fitness regime that’s specifically for us and our needs. God has planned out a particular set of experiences for you, so you can be the person in Christ, that he wants you to be in eternity for your good and his glory.

7, Submit to God’s will

Consider Jesus’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane? “Not what I will, but what you will.” Jesus longs for the cup of suffering on the cross to be taken from him. But he chooses to submit to the will of his Father, and we know the wonderful result for the whole world.

God knows better than we do. He see everything going on across the world and through eternity. And I have found that the times when I have to say “not what I will but what you will” are times when I grow in my trust of God, and my awareness of his love.

God’s silence is not the same as his absence. Though he may appear silent, he is never absent. He is always with us by his Holy Spirit. Indeed, sometimes in the difficult times we experience his presence with us even more. And we find that his presence with us is more than enough.

Conclusion

I love the Narnia books. One of the images I most appreciate is at the end of some of the books when the Christ figure – Aslan the Lion – explains to the children why certain things had to happen the way they did during the events of the story. It’ll be the same for us when we see Jesus face to face – he’ll explain why certain prayers weren’t answered, why things happened as they did, how God was working out something even more glorious. It’ll all make sense, and it will be fuel to praise and worship him even more.

This post is adapted from one of the sermons in a series on prayer which can be found here.