Why? Making Sense of God’s Will: 2. When Prayers Go Unanswered

Passage: Luke 23:44-46

Passage 2: Psalm 22:1-11

Preacher: Dr. Jim Standiford

Series: Why? Making Sense of God's Will

This is the second sernon in a series based on Adam Hamilton's book "Why? Making Sense of God's Will." Today I invite you to think with me about prayer in general and unanswered prayer in particular.

Come, Lord Jesus, fill our minds with your word, fill our hearts with your love, and fill our lives with your light. Come, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.

There was a certain woman whose young daughter was very ill. The mother went to the pharmacy to secure a prescription for her daughter. As she returned to her car she realized she had locked her keys in the car. She remembered she had heard that a coat hanger could be used to open a locked car door, so she began to look around. Sure enough in a nearby flower bed she found one, but what to do with it. In desperation she bowed her head and asked God to send help. Within five minutes a dirty, scruffy man pulled up on a beat-up old motorcycle. The woman thought, “This is what God has sent me?” Nevertheless, she breathed a prayer of thanks, as she said to him, “My daughter is very sick. I stopped to get some medicine but locked my keys in the car. Can you use this coat hanger to help me?” “Sure,” he grumbled. In a flash he had the door open. She responded, “Thank you so much. You are a very nice man.” He responded, “Lady, I’m no nice man. I’m an ex-con. I was in prison for car theft.” The woman lunged at him with a hug and cried out, “Thank you God, you even sent me a professional.”

God answers prayers, but sometimes it is in unexpected ways. When Mary Lou and I were a young couple we came to that point we decided we wanted to start a family. There were some medical difficulties. We found a good doctor who was also a good Roman Catholic who tried every form of fertility treatment he knew. We prayed and so did he over a long period of time. It seemed our prayers were not answered. He finally told Mary Lou he had no other alternatives. It was devastating news, except he said just a couple days before another of his patients had discovered she was pregnant but could not keep her baby. He asked if we would be interested in adoption. He indicated he had initiated several private adoptions before and knew how to proceed and would assist us. Our prayers were answered, but certainly not in the way we had originally anticipated. Both of our children were adopted and both are a wonderful blessing in our lives.

Tim Tebow the quarterback of the Denver Broncos football team has put prayer very much in the spotlight lately with his “Tebowing,” his way of kneeling for prayer on the field. There was a string of weeks when Tebow and his team somehow eked out a win in the fourth quarter. At one point a survey said 43% of Americans believed God must have been answering his prayers for winning. But then the Broncos lost. Immediately, in the media there was no more coverage of Tebow, or the Broncos, or prayer. This intense relationship was gone in a flash.

So often when someone says God did not answer their prayer it means they didn’t get what they asked for. Prayer is not about getting something. As Adam Hamilton states, “God is not an eternal vending machine.” The purpose of prayer is not that we have a resource to turn to after we have exhausted all other possibilities to get the things we want, even if it is the healing of our loved one’s illness or the saving of a life.  The purpose of prayer is a relationship with God. It is not a flash interview from time to time in which we beg from God. Prayer is an on-going dialogue with the one who loves us most of all. As I said last week, God can work miracles and on rare occasion does. However, God most often uses natural laws and the people around us to do God’s work and answer prayers.  God will not answer my prayer by forcing someone else to do something against their free will. God’s answer to prayer is often not to deliver us from suffering, but to walk with us through the suffering and in that relationship the suffering is transformed and so are we.

Richard Cecil understood this transformative power of God when he wrote, “God denies nothing, but with the purpose of giving something better.” Some times when we pray that a person be healed from a particular disease it means they will continue to live but with an impaired life. Perhaps God’s vision is for that person to move to the full new resurrection life, but our prayers are working against that.  There are some people who say if your prayers are not answered it is your fault: you don’t have enough faith, you have improper motives, you have unconfessed sin in your life. They may even quote Jesus’ statement, “Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.” (Matthew 21:22) What we need to remember was that Jesus spoke in hyperbole. A contemporary example might be, “I am so hungry I could eat a horse.” Jesus most often related to first century peasants living under Roman occupation. Many of their prayers were along the line of “Help me get through this day.” To that kind of need, Jesus says, “Whatever you ask, God will do.” To say God does not answer our prayers because we are not good enough is directly counter to a faith grounded in grace, whose Savior gave his life for us “while we were yet sinners,” (Romans 5:8) and which teaches we are saved by God’s grace and not by our works.         

Our first scripture lesson today highlights the relationship aspect of prayer. The writer begins by crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,…I cry by day, but you do not answer.” It ends with, “Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.” This writer is seeking a relationship with God more than anything else.

The emphasis on relationship is also at the heart of two New Testament prayer stories. The first is Paul’s account to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) that he had a “thorn in his flesh.” He told the church he prayed three times to God for relief, but God’s answer was, “My grace is enough for you, because power is made perfect in weakness.” In other words, Paul’s weakness and God’s strength will work very well together. It is their relationship that is most important for Paul’s own personal life and for his mission. Paul shows great self-understanding when he confessed that this thorn, whatever it was, would help him not be conceited, but more humble and dependent on God.

In our gospel lesson today, Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he faces what is sure to be torture and death. He asks God to take away the suffering he will have to go through. Most of us can understand that kind of prayer all too well. We have been there. As the gospel is written, Jesus pauses only for a comma, and then continues, “yet, not my will but yours be done.” It may have been that Jesus turned his prayer that quickly, but it is also possible that some time passed, minutes perhaps, or even longer, as Jesus waited for an answering word or action before he went on. That does not matter. What matters here, is that when Jesus goes on, he is affirming his willingness to do as God wishes. He is affirming his deep desire to stay in relationship with God.  Whenever you and I are in doubt, in any kind of situation, if we don’t know what to pray, these words are always the best choice, “Thy will be done.” With these words we are affirming that what is most important for us, regardless of the circumstances, is to be in relationship with God. That is the purpose of prayer. The psalmist, Paul, and Jesus all affirm their relationship with God. When we pray and it feels like God is not answering, it does not mean that God has taken a leave of absence, or is out of the office for the day, or is out on the golf course, or away from the phone. It may be that God is answering, “No.” It may be God is saying, “Slow down, wait!” It may be that God is answering in a way we have not expected and we need to increase our alertness. Let me remind you again of the words of Richard Cecil, “God denies nothing, but with the purpose of giving something better.” Jesus, as he faced death, cried out with the opening words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” Three days later, God answered by raising Jesus to new life. It is all about relationship.

I invite you in the time of silent prayer to take a few moments, and either ask God for a relationship, for God to come into your life, or to renew your relationship. You won’t have to reintroduce yourself, God knows who you are, but just get on conversational terms. Let us pray with the purpose of a relationship with God. 

 Thanks be to God.[i]