WEEKLY COMMENTARY: Unanswered Prayers

Many people agonize over the issue of unanswered prayers.  I know that for some people, past unanswered prayers form a barrier that blocks any desire to keep company with God.  What kind of companion, who has the power to save a life or heal a disease, would sit on the sidelines despite urgent pleas for help?  In a sense, every war, every epidemic or drought, every premature death, each birth defect, seems to contradict the teasing sense that prayer could resolve it.

I had reason to really think about this a while back when a neighborhood family was in crisis. Their 14-year-old daughter had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.  We all prayed for the child's recovery, or at least for some kind of remission.  It was not to be.  In two short months the child was gone.  Her mother, Marilyn, was particularly swept up in grief, and I attempted to help her work through it.  She wanted to understand why her fervent prayers apparently had gone unanswered.

I told Marilyn that even after confessing in our prayers things we have done wrong and feel guilty about, and asking God's forgiveness, our prayer does not work according to a fixed formula.  It is not ---- get your life in order, say the right words, and the desired result will come.  If that were true, Jesus would never have gone to Golgotha and the Cross.  Between the two questions "Does God answer prayers?" and "Will God grant my specific prayer for this sick child or this particular injustice?" lies a great deal of mystery. 

I told Marilyn that God is not a jolly grandfather who satisfies our every desire.  Certainly for the parents who have lost a child their wish would have been for the child to live.  They would have pleaded with God, but seemingly, he denied their request.

Nor is God, I told Marilyn, a calculating merchant who withholds his goods until we produce enough good works or faith to buy his help.  God does not hand out merit pay.

Then I suggested to Marilyn that Pastor David Mains had a handy checklist for making sure our prayers are on target:

     1.) What do I really want?  Am I being specific, or am I just rambling about nothing in 

                                                  particular?

     2.) Can God grant this request?  Or, is it against God's nature to do so?  (Like a prayer that I 

                                                             will win the Lottery.)

     3.) Have I done my part?  Or, am I praying to lose weight when I haven't dieted?

     4.) How is my relationship with God?  Are we on speaking terms?

     5.) Who will get the credit if my request is granted?  Do I really have God's interests in 

                                               mind?

     6.) Do I  really want my prayer answered?  What would happen if I actually did get that 

                                                                               girlfriend back?

But, I said, this is a human's rationale for successful prayer, and God may have his own ideas!

I pointed out to Marilyn that some prayers go unanswered because they are simply frivolous.  But that clearly her prayers had not been of this type.  I was talking about a prayer like:  "Lord, please give us a sunny day for the soccer match."  This trivializes prayer, especially when local farmers may at the same time be praying for rain.  A last-ditch plea, "Help me get an "A" on the next test," will likely not succeed if the pray-er has not studied, just as a chain-smoker has no right to pray, "Protect me from lung cancer."

I went on to say that athletes often have their own style of frivolous prayers.  Prayers in many sports will thump their chests, raise a finger to the sky and eyes toward heaven, as if asking the Big One upstairs for a touchdown, goal or home run.  Marilyn agreed that my examples of frivolous unanswered prayers were actually self-serving and not in accord with God;s nature. They put the focus on our things, not on the things of God.

We talked about some prayers really being impossible to answer, although prayers for Marilyn's daughter did not seem to fit here.  If a dozen people pray to get the same job, eleven must ultimately come to terms with unanswered prayer.  And if two "Christian" nations wage war against each other, some citizens' prayers will not be answered to their satisfaction.

What would happen if God answered EVERY prayer?  If you think about it, God would in effect be abdicating, turning the world over to US to run.  History shows how we have handled the limited power already granted to us ---- we have fought wars, committed genocide, foiled the air and water, destroyed forests, established unjust political systems, concentrated pockets of superfluous wealth and grinding poverty.  What if God gave us automatic access to supernatural power by granting all our prayers?  What further havoc might we wreak?

But often there is no logical explanation of unanswered prayer.  Author Philip Yancey who has given much thought and writing to the nature of prayer, says we must place our faith in a God who has yet to fulfill the promise that good will overcome evil, that God's purposes will, in the end, prevail.  To cling to that belief, he says, may represent the ultimate rationalization ---- or the ultimate act of faith.

______________________________________________________________________________

These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal spiritual growth this Fall at CPC.

______________________________________________________________________________