Unanswered Prayers and a Loving God

I sat by the window seat during a trip I made recently and I beheld, with wonder and admiration, the moving trees, the majestic cloud (whose colour I sadly couldn’t decipher because of my limited knowledge of chromatics), scantily dressed village kids hawking wares, older men drinking local wine under a thatched-roofed roadside pub, local chickens clucking away, bucks chasing nannies… all the amusingly beautiful– but sometimes pesky– chaos of day-to-day life in a rural area.

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I remember how I once, after a time of intense consecration and juvenile zeal, asked God in prayer to pluck away my eyes should I ever look lustfully at any woman. After all, the good book says we should do away with wayward body parts, and I wasn’t gonna let no eyes take away sweet paradise.  Well, I did look. He didn’t pluck. Glory to His exalted name. Also, looking back now, I thank Him for not giving me the tiniest voice in the world like I asked for as a kid. I really wanted to sing soprano better than Christy Lane, but I hadn’t thought of the consequences. How would anyone take a grown man who speaks in the 8^th Octave of Key C seriously? We all have those moments when we look back and thank Him for discarding our juvenile, unreasonable, sometimes idiotic requests.

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I once heard the story of a young lady who stepped out of her apartment with so much excitement, only to be harassed by a libidinous madman across the street. Filled to the brim with unfettered urges, the foul-smelling lunatic seized her and proceeded to defile her on the stony floor by the roadside. Stone, bricks, timber, were hauled at him by flustered passersby. He was punched, kicked and pulled by hefty men, but he endured all, till he made an end to pleasing himself.  Mentally damaged and unable to spend the rest of her life with the trauma and shame, the lady committed suicide some days after. I can imagine she prayed. I can imagine she screamed her lungs out for help to the great omnipotent God who obviously was present, as He is everywhere. In fact, I feel she really didn’t have to pray. If the ever-caring God (who sees the innermost thoughts of our hearts (Psalm 129) and knows our needs while we still think and before we ask (Matthew 6:8)) had intervened, not only would she be with us now, but He could have won Himself a loyal disciple. Now she’s dead, and probably in hell for killing herself. Yes, He has better plans and sees life from a dynamic, perfect perspective, but what is the logic behind not granting the desperate plea of a girl who was about to be raped?

I do not doubt God’s goodness. Or His fairness. But this is not going to be another of the numerous apologetics, so do not expect some “nevertheless, clap for Jesus” 12^th round knockout punch for the Lord at the end. This is because I, like many other Christians, struggle and are met with silence to prayer requests that are beyond valid, and we wonder with lumps in our throats why God’s interventions are confined to miracles which are by definition infrequent and not close to being enough, instead of more commonplace responses like we read in the Pentateuch.

It is both depressing and hilarious how some quickly run to cover up for God. We are told to shut up and deal with it. Every question is seen as unbelief and lack of faith. Some others are even categorized as flat-out heresies and can lead to your excommunication. We are told to be grateful for the air we breathe that is expensive, the clothes we wear, the food, friends and family, shelter and other abundant benefits. Yes indeed, God is faithful, kind and true, but He, by Himself, spoke the contents of John 16:24 and so we hold Him by His word (Psalm 138:2).

I read from a friend’s meditation shared on her WhatsApp status how trying to put our arms around something we were never designed to hold is a futile effort, and that a new life starts with confessing the truth: “There are some things in life I have no control over.” This is true and sounds soothing, but brings no comfort, and does nothing to assuage the poignant circumstances of life.

Jesus Himself said ask, and you’ll receive (Matthew 7:7). He implicates Himself further when he promised to do anything we ask in His name (John 14:14). Anything. That verse has probably done more harm than any other.

We begin to pose questions.

You said anything, “I only asked for a job, not anything extravagant, just something I can feed my aged parents with”.

“Is it too much to ask that you should heal my mum who has served you all her life?”

“Why did you say ‘ask anything’ and then refuse to intervene in my sister’s failing marriage after all the fasting and prayers?”

Believers needed new organs but died praying for it. Workers in church who cannot pay their rent, youths fervent for kingdom cause but penniless, jobless and broke. A woman struggling with her infant with spinal bifida, another Christian family burying their kids. Out of school children from families who never miss morning devotion.

Some promises are practically unfulfillable or at least very difficult to keep, like Herod’s (Matthew 6:23) and Ahasuerus’ (Esther 5:3), but you’d expect God’s promises to be exceptions. After all, He wasn’t coaxed into making them, why then aren’t we really seeing them fulfilled? At times one wonder if He made those vows in a desperate wooing attempt, like a man who uttered mighty impossible things to win the affection of a beautiful damsel. He needed to reconcile with His choicest creations so badly He was willing to say anything to make them love Him again. Perhaps like an overjoyed bloke, brain swimming in endorphins, who then made profligate assurances only to wake up sober the next day and lament an ill-considered pledge rashly made.

If He had said “ask anything in my name and I will seriously consider it”, everyone would have gone back to work. There would’ve been ten thousand less books and Philip Yancey might have been a carpenter, but He said do ask until your joy is full (John 16:24), and yet we’re left hanging and feeling confused, like a kid stranded in the marketplace.

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I have since learnt to accept my intellectual disability on so many mysterious spiritual matters, the subject of prayer being one of such. We live in a world riddled with mysteries, and it is futile to try to unravel the unravel-able. After all, is a mystery really a mystery if it is not mysterious?

I end this with a few stories, the first extracted from the book ”The Hungering Dark”  by Frederick Buechner:

”It is a peculiarly twentieth-century story, and it is almost too awful to tell: about a boy of twelve of thirteen who, in a fit of crazy anger and desperation, got hold of a gun somewhere and fired at his father, who died not right away but soon afterwards. When the authorities asked the boy why he had done it, he said it was because he could not stand his father, because his father demanded too much of him, because he was always after him, because he hated his father. And then later on, after he had been placed in a house of detention somewhere, a guard was walking down the corridor late one night when he heard sounds from the boy’s room, and he stopped to listen. The words that he heard the boy sobbing out in the dark were, “I want my father, I want my father”.”

No matter how much we feel flummoxed by His decisions, we still need God and we will be unfair to deny His love for mankind or how far He has gone on our behalf.

The other story is more recent, and much more personal.

A close relative of mine had been diagnosed with Non-Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus for over 13 years now, and I, alongside many, have made intercessions to God for their healing. Recently (after 13+ years of incessant supplications!), I got a reply from heaven. The said relative would have died years ago from a fat-related disease condition had they not been diabetic. The disease ensured that excess and potentially dangerous fat stores accumulating in the internal organs were burned, hence prolonging their life. I had to apologize to God for the times I accused him of being snobbish concerning the request, and thank him for his kindness. What a nice thing to do! At that point, God seemed to me like a fine gentleman. But the truth is, whether or not He chose to respond (in this instance He did), He did the best thing, like he always does.  I wouldn’t have understood without the explanation. He didn’t have to explain. He just went ahead and did what He had to do. That’s it. That’s why He’s the boss.

Another story was told of a great man of God who died rather suddenly. The church wailed. It shouldn’t have been him. Aspersions were cast on the character of God and many stopped believing. But what really happened was a fulfillment of Isaiah 57 verse 1. There was an imminent quagmire that would have met him with great opprobrium, and led to his eternal ruin, and so God took him. Heaven’s court decided he had laboured too much and too hard to miss out on his reward, and called him home abruptly.

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One thing is sure. Our world is doomed. I feel God wants to make sure we don’t feel too much at home here. Didn’t Lazarus who was raised from the dead later die? Miracles are to show us that there is more. A teaser. A proof of better things to come. A peek behind the curtains of divinity, an appetizer to wet our appetites as we await our main course in heaven.

Why bother praying at all then? Simple, because Jesus prayed. The scripture is filled with instances where Jesus prayed publicly (John 11:38-44) and privately (Luke 4:1-2; 5:16), and the aftermath of His prayers (Matthew 14:13-21; 15: 29-39). Not only did He pray, He also command is to do the same (Luke 18:1), taught us how (Matthew 6:6, 9-13), how not (Matthew 6: 7-8), even made an 8-verse parable on it’s importance (Luke 18:1-8).

The disciples prayed and received the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:1-4), Moses, Joshua and Elijah prayed and subjugated the laws of nature (Exodus 14:21, Joshua 10:12-13, 1 Kings 17:1; 18:41-45), Solomon prayed his way into wisdom and prosperity (2 Chronicles 1:8-12), Esther into national security for the Jews (Esther 4:16), Nehemiah into leadership (Nehemiah 1:4-11), Paul and Silas prayed their way out of prison (Acts 16:24-34), and Dorcas was brought back to life (Acts 9:36-41). These are proofs that prayer works, and that those times the end results are unpleasant should not rule out when they bore fruits. That would be unfair and biased.

Jesus himself battled with unanswered prayers (Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:42). That is to me, a kind of consolation.

A perfect score on the answered prayers report card and a life devoid of pain and angst is no proof of a perfect Christian life, or else Christ, His disciples and the early apostles will be the chiefest of pagans. Or were they?

Author: Oluwafemi Dada