When Our Prayers Aren’t Answered (to Our Satisfaction)

Tom Barnard

on’t you hate it when your ignorance is revealed? Here you are, called to minister, equipped to lead, and experienced in things biblical and perhaps even pastoral. A friend comes to you with a delicate personal matter—one that seems to be headed for a worst-case-scenario ending. You agree to join that person in petitioning God for His intervention. Your expectations are high. The results for which you are praying are reasonable and good. You add fasting to your prayers. You plead with God to intervene. And nothing seems to work out the way you hoped it would.

Questions arise in your mind. “Was it presumption on my part? Did I miss something along the way? Was I asking for something unrealistic? Was I selfish? Was I not sensitive enough to God’s will in this?” Maybe it was not ignorance on your part. Maybe it was just part of being human. Then, what should be our attitude when God’s timing is not the same as our timing? What should we do when our prayers are not answered to our satisfaction?

Among other things, we learn—that’s what we do. We return to the basics we learned as young professionals. We call our zeal what it is—ignorance, immaturity, or failure to see the bigger picture. We ask God to forgive us for our short-sightedness. We ask the friend for whom we are praying to be patient. We let God be God. We trust His sovereignty. And we keep on praying.

A friend sent me the following words on the subject of intercessory prayer:

Petitionary prayer is our effort to find out and to accept what God has to say concerning us and our desires. Having brought our desires before God, we are to leave them quietly, trustfully with God, and go away from them. We can trust God to act upon them and upon us, but his work is done silently, slowly, mysteriously, and without our knowing how or when he works. All change of self requires time and pain, and the all-wise God alone knows how to do that.

If we are to be productive in our prayer life, we need to continue to take our concerns to God in prayer, and ask. Jesus told us to ask. And continue to ask. And not grow impatient asking, until God answers—even if his answer is, “You don’t need to prayer about this any longer.”  At some point we need to be willing to let God do his work—“silently, slowly, mysteriously, and without our knowing how or when he works.” That’s where trust begins. We leave our petitions “quietly, trustfully with God, and go away from them.” God will do the right thing. At the right time. He always does.

If any of the above applies to you, rejoice. We all are learners. We learn through our mistakes. We learn through our victories. We learn through watching others. We learn through waiting on God for an answer. We learn through doing things right the second time—after failing to do things right the first time. And we learn much about prayer through our ignorance. God seems to be comfortable in our doing it this way.