Prayer
By Rev. David Wilson Rogers | July 13, 2013
Prayer is powerful. Prayer changes things. Prayer can heal cancer, restore life, mend broken families, and is the means by which we get help when we most need it. There are times, however, when the answer to prayer is simply not there. That is when we need to really understand the bewildering reality of unanswered prayer.
There are a lot of diverse ways in which seemingly unanswered prayer is understood. Yet, frequently these shallow half-truths serve only to arbitrarily discount the unanswered prayer with unsympathetic ambivalence. The prayers offered are not only real, but they represent a fervently genuine passion. Passively writing off an unanswered prayer without compassion and love can destroy a person’s heart and faith.
People are told prayer is unanswered because they do not have enough faith or that they did not pray in the right way. People say that there is no such thing as an unanswered prayer only that the answer is sometimes, “No!” It has been said that not enough prayers were offered, that sin overrode the power of prayer, and that the request were needlessly selfish. Some rationalize the lack of an answer by saying that God had other things in mind. All these answers are rooted in some truth, but when tossed out thoughtlessly, can create deep wounds.
Countless
prayers have been offered that genuinely arise out of our shared faith in
The
disciples made similar mistakes. In
The
two passages complement one another quite well. Praying “in
At the root of unanswered prayer is the human reality that sin will always interfere with prayer to some extent. It blinds our eyes to God’s wisdom, directs our desires away from God’s will, and closes our eyes to God’s grand vision. Sin will always do this to us.
Yet,
in spite of this very real brokenness arising from our imperfect humanity, two
truths remain unchanged.