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, Kate, 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 Kate 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, then 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 for this
particular injustice?" lies a great deal of mystery.
I said to Kate 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 the request was denied.
Nor is God, I told Kate, 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 Kate 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 good is my
relationship with God? Are we on speaking terms?
5.) Do I really want
my prayer answered? What would happen if I actually did get
that
girlfriend back?
Remember, I said to Kate, this is a human's rationale for
successful prayer, and God may have His own ideas.
I pointed out to Kate 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."
Kate 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 Kate'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 their unanswered prayer. And if two "Christian" nations
wage war against each other, citizen prayers on the losing side would not be
answered to the satisfaction of the person praying.
What would happen if God answered EVERY prayer? If you
think about it, in effect God would be abdicating. He would be turning
over to us all the world's problems to solve. History shows how we have
handled the limited power already granted to us. We have fought wars,
committed genocide, fouled the air, 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 of
our prayers? What further havoc might we wreak?
But often there is no logical explanation of unanswered
prayer. Author Philip Yancey has given much thought and writing to the
nature of prayer. He says we must place our faith in a God who has yet to
fulfill the promise that good will overcome evil, and 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.
Yancey also says that often we may be looking in the wrong
places for answers to prayer. Yancey suggests that perhaps the real purpose of
prayer is to change us ---- how we see our lives, how we relate to
others and how we see our future. And, importantly, that this occurs
gradually and without much drama.
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult
Spiritual Education Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal
spiritual growth this summer at CPC.
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