But in one of the most famous and frequently-quoted passages from the New Testament portion of the Bible, Jesus seems to hold out more expansive possibilities to those who pray:
"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened..." [Luke 11:9-10]That's wonderful and I believe the words are true. But let's be honest...
Many funerals are attended tearfully by widows, widowers, family members, and friends who asked God to bring their loved ones healing instead of death.Jesus' commendation of prayer that asks, searches, and knocks in the assurance that God will hear our prayers and answer them can, for people going through life's worst, seem like mockery.
There are people who leave divorce courts or who feel trapped in rotten marriages even though with faith and desperation, they've sought God's help in bringing healing or reconciliation.
Many a situation has blown up in people's faces in spite of knocking on the doors of heaven for help and wisdom.
I don't have all the answers, by any stretch of the imagination, but let me share a few thoughts with you on unanswered prayer.
First of all: Not even Jesus got everything He asked for in prayer. One of Jesus' most famous prayers occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He was arrested. Subsequently, He would be tried, scourged, crucified, and killed. Jesus knew that this was the plan for His life. He knew that it was only through His death that He could take our punishment for sin and by way of death, He could rise again to offer life to all with faith in Him.
But, as He prayed in the garden that night, He understandably wanted to avoid suffering. That's why He called out to God the Father:
"Father, if You are willing, remove this cup [suffering and death] from Me..." [Luke 22:42]To this prayer, God the Father said, "No."
It may provide some comfort to us when the heartfelt prayers we offer for ourselves and others are given the answer of "No," for us to realize that Jesus was given the same answer. He understands not only what it is to go through adversity, pain, and death, He also understands what it feels like to sense the iron gates of heaven close to us.
Maybe the most poignant and gut-wrenching prayer in history was that cried out by Jesus on the executioner's cross, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" [Matthew 27:46]
Second: When we pray, we submit to God's will, surrendering the doing of our own. This, in fact, was what Jesus prayed for immediately after asking the Father to take the cup of suffering and death away. Take it from Me, Jesus pleads, "yet not My will, but Yours be done." [Luke 22:42]
A dying man once told me, "Even though I don't understand why this is happening to me, if I don't mean it when I tell God, 'Your will be done,' right now, then I've never meant it."
Third: God's will for us is to give us what we need, not what we want. (Who knew that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were such good theologians?) It's interesting that when Jesus gave His first followers and us a template prayer, what's called the Lord's Prayer, He didn't commend to us "name-it-claim-it" petitions. In fact, the central petition of the prayer and its overarching theme seems to be, "Give us each day our daily bread."
Underlying this petition of the prayer is the experience of the ancient Israelites. While wandering through the wilderness under their often-frustrated leader, Moses, God fed them on a substance like bread, called manna. Each day, for five days of the week, God gave them precisely what they needed for that day. On the sixth day, God gave them double what they needed so that on the day of rest (sabbath), they would have sufficient provision without working for it. Some of the Israelites decided that they would take an extra portion so that they could lay more provisions aside. But when they took more than their "daily bread," they found the stuff had rotted.
A friend of mine worked for a millionnaire who'd come from humble beginnings. One day, as they worked together on sheltering his income from taxes, the millionnaire commented, "When I didn't have anything, I used to think that if I only had a little more, I could relax. But now that I have a lot, I worry more about money than I ever did before."
Just as surely as there will always be poor people, there will also always be people who have a lot. Some people seem especially gifted at making money and there is no reason for guilt about that.
But the happiest people on the planet are those who live on what they need from day to day and are generous in giving to family, friends, and others, sharing God's blessings. They're the ones who live in the certainty that God has a plan for their lives and that, whether we live or die, we always belong to the God made plain in Jesus Christ. [Romans 8:31-39]
Fourth: The fact that I have seen God give the answer of "Yes," to many prayers, along with the fact that Jesus has experienced everything you and I experience in life, incites me to keep trusting God with my prayers.
Speaking of Jesus as our great high priest, the writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews says, "...we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses..." [Hebrews 4:15] The reality of suffering and of seemingly unanswered prayer must be a part of God's plan. Until God's reasons are made clear, maybe only in eternity, we can take comfort and hope from the God Who has been there and knows what it's like to be human.
A widower once told me, "After my wife died, I wanted to die myself. I remember one night, the pain was so great that I threw myself down on the floor and cried. I just asked God to help me. And you know, ever since then, He has."
Fifth: Remember that, "No" is as much as an answer to prayer as, "Yes." In fact, according to Bill Hybels in his book, Too Busy Not to Pray, there are at least four different answers God can give to our prayers.
God can say not only Yes or No, but also Wait or Maybe. The purpose of these latter two answers, as with the first two, will be to bring us greater blessings. Among those blessings might be to help us mature in our faith and our gratitude for God's gifts.
My family and I were called to the Cincinnati area to start a new congregation back in August, 1990. But it wasn't until Christmas Eve, 2002 that we had our first worship service in our church's own building. In the intervening years, we'd worshiped in an elementary school gym. People of any church who have spent time worshiping in temporary facilities without access to permanent storage, offices, or weekday facilities will understand what it was like for us to be a church without a home all those years. Both the congregation and I--along with friends--prayed through that whole period for a place of our own. There were several times when we thought we might have one, only to find our dreams dashed by circumstances.
Do you know what? Finally getting a building was sweeter for the wait! The unmistakable conclusion we've drawn from all those years of waiting and praying is that the building is a gift from God that we're to share generously with others. We might not have realized that if God had said, "Yes" too soon.
When I go to God and ask for what I want, I don't like being told, "Because I love you, I'm going to give you what I need." But part of acknowledging God as God is recognizing His absolute authority over our lives. That's what it means to call God, Lord.
So, go ahead and be bold in your praying---ask, seek, knock. But to the God Who is more than a kewpie doll, genie, or ATM, we also pray, "Your will be done." From that God, we can receive comfort and through the risen Jesus, hope that can't die!
[To read more on this subject, check out:
Prayer: The Essential Conversation, Part 1
Prayer: The Essential Conversation, Part 2
Prayer: The Essential Conversation, Part 3]
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