Unanswered Prayers

"His purpose concerning us is not to make things easy for us

—but to make something of us."- J.R. Miller

"There are times when God seems to be silent to us. To our earnest supplications, he answers not a word. We are told to ask and we shall receive—to seek, and we shall find—to knock, and it shall be opened unto us. Yet there come times when we ask imploringly, and seem not to receive; when, though we seek with intense eagerness, we seem not to find; when we knock until our hands are bruised and bleeding, and there seems to be no opening of the door. Sometimes the heavens appear to be brass above us, as we ask, "Is there anywhere an ear to hear our pleadings? Is there anywhere a heart to feel sympathy with us in our need?"Nothing is so awful as this silence of God—to feel that communication with him is cut off. It is a pathetic prayer in which a psalm writer pleads: "Be not silent to me, lest I become like those who go down into the pit." Anything from God is better than that he be silent to us."-Miller

God is teaching me a lot about His character right now. Last night I heard a message that spoke of God being our "Keeper". Like a shepherd tends to his flock and would even lay down his life for his sheep, so God does with us. Anything in our life is there because He allowed it to be there. Nothing snuck in when God wasn't looking, but He has sovereignly allowed it. This led me to think about my prayers. There have been many times where I have legalistically approached prayer and when I didn't think my prayers were being answered I was tempted to think that I must have prayed the wrong way. But God doesn't work like that. Everything God does has a purpose, even silence. I am learning trust and patience in a lot of things right now and prayer is one of them. J.R. Miller wrote a wonderful article on prayer that truly helped to encourage me and give me fresh hope and faith in God's character and plan.

Miller's above words describe how I have felt many times. Times when I have felt that cry out to God as I might, there was no answer. I never became angry as a result of this, just lonely, desperate and confused. But these feelings are not informed by truth, because even though I may not perceive it, may prayers are being answered all around me. We sometimes expect the answer to prayers to come with pomp and blare, but they often come silently and ease into our lives. God's answers to our prayers are always for our good and His glory. I've included parts of Miller's article below. I don't even have the word to explain what God has spoken to my heart through Miller's words...I only know that God is confirming His love and care for me more and more everyday and I want to honor that love and care by living like I trust Him. It may be a moment by moment battle for me, but it's one I want to fight. " Lord, grant me the patience to wait on Your timing and trust in Your answers."

"We find ourselves in the midst of circumstances which appear adverse to our happiness and good. We seem about to be crushed by sorrows, by disappointments, by trials, or by antagonisms. We pray to be saved from these distressful conditions. No answer seems to come. The shadow deepens; the blows fall. We sit in the darkness, and say that God did not answer our prayers. We are unaware of the blessing that really came to us in the time of our pain. The cup of suffering was not taken away; but we were secretly strengthened, so that we were able to drink it. Thus, there is a large field of praying in which answers come—but come unrecognized. We have been blessed, although we knew it not. We did not perceive the blessing when it was given to us. We did not understand that the good things we were receiving so plentifully, were answers to our prayers. We thought God was not heeding our requests, when really he was giving us abundant answer every day!

But there are other prayers that really are not answered. God is silent to us when we ask. Yet there is a reason for his silence. It is better we should not have the things we want and plead for. For example, we ask God to lift away our burdens. But to do this would rob us of blessings which can come to us only through the bearing of the burden; and our Father loves us too well to give us present ease—at the cost of future and eternal good. There are mistaken notions current about the way God promises to help us. People think that whenever they have a little trouble to endure, a bit of hard path to go over, a load to carry, a sorrow to meet, or a trail of any kind—all they have to do is to call upon God, and he will at once deliver them, take away the burden or the sorrow which threatens, free them from trial. They think that is what God promises to do. They imagine that when anything goes a little wrong with them, all they have to do is to pray, and God will set it right. But this is not the manner of God's love. His purpose concerning us is not to make things easy for us—but to make something of us.

So when we pray to God to save us from all care, to take the struggles out of our life, to make the paths mossy, to lift away all loads—he simply will not do it. It would be most unloving in him to do so. Prayers of this kind, therefore, go unanswered. We must carry the burden ourselves. God wants us to learn life's lessons, and to do this, we must be left to work out the problems for ourselves. There are rich blessings that can be gotten only in sorrow. It would be a short-sighted love, indeed, that would heed our cries and spare us from the sorrow because we cried for this, thus depriving us of the wonderful blessings which can be gotten only in the sorrow.

There is yet another class of prayers which appear to be unanswered—but whose answer is only delayed for wise reasons. Ofttimes we are not able at the moment to receive the things we ask for. Or it may be that the things we pray for cannot be given to us until they have been prepared for us. Suppose you were to plant a young fruit-tree, and were to begin to pray for fruit from its branches; could your prayer be answered at once? It is thus with many things we ask for in our pleading—they must be grown before they can be given to us. God delays to answer, that he may give us in the end, better things than could have been given at the beginning. He seems silent to us when we plead; but it is not the silence of indifference, nor the silence of refusal—but the silence of love, which really assents to our request, and sets about preparing for us the blessings we crave. We need only patience, to wait our Father's time.

Here it is that ofttimes we fail. We cannot wait for God. We think he is indifferent to us, because he does not instantly give us what we crave. We fret and vex ourselves over the unanswering of the very prayers which God is really answering, as speedily as the blessings can be made ready for us, or as we can be made ready to receive them. We should teach ourselves to trust our Father in all that concerns our prayers—what he will give, what he shall withhold, and the time and the manner of his giving. The prayers may have been answered in ways in which we did not recognize our requests. They may be, indeed, unanswered, because to answer them would have been unkindness to us, or would have wrought hurt to others. Or the answers may have been delayed until we are made ready to receive them, or while God is preparing them for us."