“Why are Prayers Not Answered?”

Readings: Psalm 16, Galatians 5:1, 13-25, Habakkuk 2:1-4 Matthew 7:7-12
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, on June 26, 2022

Matthew 7:7-8   "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.”

In the light of such words, why is it our prayers often seem to be unanswered?

You knew somebody who was ill. You prayed fervently that God would heal them. They died. Was your prayer unanswered?

An opening came up in your job. All the pieces fitted together. You were prepared, a promotion was overdue, and it would do you and your family good. You prayed about that position. But they passed you over and brought somebody in from outside. Was your prayer unanswered?

You lost a stone out of your ring. It was a ring that had both actual and sentimental value. You prayed that God would help you find it. You never did. Was your prayer unanswered? Unanswered prayer is one of the challenges that we face as Christians. We believe in prayer. We practice prayer. We don’t always see answered prayers.

Let us start be putting the question in the right perspective. This is not God’s problem. This is our problem. A problem that stems partly from the fact that in asking the question, we show ourselves to have made up our mind what we believe prayer is and how prayer should work.

Surely prayer is not just about asking, but also about listening and talking and meditating and thinking and dreaming and praising. Prayer is not begging favors from a big old Mr. Meanie in the sky!

If God is Sovereign of the Universe, the all-powerful creator and sustainer, it seems fair to conclude that God is under absolutely no obligation to answer our prayers in the way we feel God should.

The Bible, that volume of 66 books that are designed to bring us to faith and to build our expectations in what God can do, gives us some startling examples of prayers that were not answered in the way people had hoped for.

Moses prayed that God would allow him to enter the Promised Land, but he died on top of Mount Nebo. The prophet Habakkuk begins his book with the words, “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?” (Habakkuk 1:2)

Paul prayed three times for the removal of a thorn in the flesh that was hindering his missionary labors, but as far as we know the problem haunted him for the rest of his life.

Jesus, the Son of God and our Savior, prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that the Father would remove His cup of suffering. But He drank that cup to its bitter depths!

How are we to understand these instances?  Was God simply not listening, taking no notice? Again, we have to question our own assumptions about how God should act. For some reason we expect God to say ‘Yes’ as an answer to whatever we ask.

There are other absolutely reasonable answers. Such as;
•    “Yes, but not in the way that you are thinking of”.
•    “Yes, but not yet”.
•    And of course, “NO” is also a valid response!

“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” But you may not receive exactly what you are asking for, (particularly if you are demanding a ‘yes’)… seek and you will find an answer, knock and the door will be opened, but behind it may not be precisely what you expected.

Unanswered prayer, I say again, is our problem, not God’s problem. God always has an answer; our problem is that it’s not the one we asked for. Now there is a biblical rationale to this.

God operates on a different agenda to our agenda. The things we count as all important, things such as money and possessions and status… God tells us these are insignificant… the things we invest with little significance, things such as solid relationships, honoring and respecting all peoples worth and dignity, looking to the needs of others as much as our own… God tells us that these are the big things about life on planet earth.

Listen… here is the answer in a nutshell. “Why are prayers not answered?” Because prayer is not all about asking. It’s about submitting our wills to the will of God. That’s why Moses died on Mount Nebo. That’s why Habakkuk felt God would never come around, that’s why Paul never had the thorn in his flesh removed, that’s why Christ had to struggle and sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane…prayer is about disciplining our lives that the will of God may be done on earth as it is in heaven. Prayer is an attempt to line up our agenda with God’s agenda.

An illustration. Mum and a child are going shopping. So Mum makes up her list of what they need. Food. Drink. Bread. New socks. And so it goes. Maybe even a few treats thrown in. Meanwhile the child has heard they are going shopping and is making up their own list. Bike. Skateboard. Fishing line. Sponge Bob Square pants X-Box game, all the Disney products they have in stock, a dog, a monkey (if they sell monkeys... who wouldn’t want a monkey?)... .so the list grows.

It is obvious which list of items is going to make it to the check out. The child is going to be very disappointed if they expected their list to be fulfilled. Sad thing is, sometimes our prayer lists are more comparable with the shopping list of the child than the mother, more filled with wants than needs, more concerned with what we want than what God wants for our lives.

Now, if mum and child sat down together and made the list, then you know what? The child would know what to ask for! This also applies to prayer. In prayer we are called to line up our agendas with God’s agenda, in order that our service and worship of God may be effective and real and alive!

Rather than talking about unanswered prayers, let me phrase the question slightly differently; and ask, “How can we take steps to pray about the right things?” I suggest 3 steps;

Pray with Persistence

Be assured, God wants us to pray. Out text makes it clear it is a good thing to ask things of our Father in Heaven. Jesus tells us ASK, SEEK and KNOCK.

ASK: When we ask of God it means we see our need of Him. It means we believe God can meet our needs.

SEEK: This indicates there is some effort involved in our asking. We can pray, “Give us this day our daily bread”, but that does not remove from us the responsibility to work for our daily bread. We can pray “Thy Kingdom Come” but we still have to work to bring the values of God’s Kingdom to bear upon the kingdoms of this world.

KNOCK: When you were in school you wouldn’t go and casually knock on your principals’ study door, unless you had something you really needed to talk about. You wouldn’t go in there and say in a random fashion, “Hey dude, did you see the game last night!”

It’s not that God is too busy to hear our prayers, rather that our prayers have to be from the heart. ‘Knocking’ implies persistence in prayer. It doesn’t mean we have to go on and on and on about things to God. It does mean that when we pray, we must be serious about the task. Pray with persistence.

Pray with Patience   

The preacher C.H. Spurgeon said waiting was like a long sea journey that brought back treasure from distant lands. ‘Coasters’ were small boats that carried coal and ordinary things from port to port in the same country, hugging the coastline as they traveled.  But the great treasures came from the larger ships that sailed out of sight on great oceans. The point being… some things are worth waiting for.

Be patient. Prayers are answered in different ways. As we’ve seen “Yes, but not now” “No” or “Well, Yes but nothing like in the way you expected” are all valid answers.  God’s agenda of importance differs from ours. Pray with persistence, pray with patience. And thirdly…

Pray to a Person.

Christian prayer is not asking that the “Force will be with you.” We are not channeling supernatural forces or seeking to be a conduit for some divine stream of consciousness.

We address our prayers to ONE Jesus described as a heavenly Father, a Father who wants only the absolute best for all of His much loved and cherished children.  In prayer we are seeking to meet with God up close and personal.

Why are prayers not answered? Well... it all depends on what you mean by prayer and what you mean by answering. If you are asking; ‘Why doesn’t God give us everything we ever dreamed of and run the world in the way that we think is best’… then the answer is simple. There is a God. And it is not you.  

Prayer is not trying to force God’s arm to do what we want, but an attempt to align our lives with the will of God. In that process the desires of our hearts often need to be refined and redefined. Such a process cannot be determined by ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ answers.

The problem of unanswered prayer is best approached by seeking to deepen our personal relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. The “Who’ of prayer, is a whole lot more important than the “Why?” of prayer.

Trust that when you pray, God knows best!

 It is in that framework that Jesus offers to us these words. "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.”

The Reverend Adrian J Pratt B.D.