Why doesn't God answer prayer?

A dear Brother in the Lord will be teaching a Bible class this summer and made request for my initial response to the title of his class: "Why doesn't God answer prayer?"  The following was my response to him, be enriched!

An existential question for every believer to grapple and re-grapple with throughout their lifetime for sure!  I find myself lacking adequate experience to answer this.  I'm afraid I have seen many a prayer go unanswered.... or not answered the way I had wanted, facing much disappointment in my life.  Where I am at currently with the subject matter... God never changes, in character, yet we see clear examples from scripture about Him changing his mind in response to prayer (Moses) or prayer requiring continual asking (Daniel), so I reconcile that it is me.  I am the reason God does not answer my prayers-- lack of faith most likely.  Lack of endurance, lack of care... and so many other places in which "I lack."  Do I feel condemned for my lack?  No!  Because, on the flip side I am fully convinced of God's love for me, that His desire is for me to be in such union so as to see all my prayer's answered, to receive all that I ask for (John 3:19-ff).  

It is not God who has let humanity down, nor is God to blame for the prevalence of evil in our world.  It is our lack that causes us to hurt one another.  He has supplied a way for us to LOVE one another.  Yet, instead of "loving people and using things, we love things and use people" (Ravi Zacharias).  It us to blame for the lack, it us to blame for the evil.  What shall we do with all this blame?  Bring our wretched souls before God day after day, time after time, and allow Him to fill us with His love.  Easy?  No!  If prayer were easy everyone would do it!

Some favorite, very sobering and convicting, excerpts of Andrew Murray come to mind:

"Learn to say of every want and every failure and every lack of needful grace: I have waited too little upon God, or He would have given me in due season all I needed.  And say then, too-- My soul, wait thou only upon God!"  (Andrew Murray, Waiting Upon God, pg 25)

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.  --John 15:7

When we compare this promise with the experience of most believers, we are startled by an awesome discrepancy.  Who could count the prayers that rise to God and have no answer?  Why is this?  Either we do not fulfill the condition or God does not fulfill the promise.

Believers are not willing to admit either, and therefore have devised a way of escape from the dilemma.  They add to the promise the qualifying clause our Savior did not put there: if it is God’s will.  That way, they maintain both God’s integrity and their own.  How sad that they do not accept and hold the Word as it stands, trusting Christ to vindicate His truth.  Then God’s Spirit would lead them to see the divine propriety of such a promise to those who truly abide in Christ in the sense in which He means it, and to confess that the failure in fulfilling the condition is the one sufficient explanation of unanswered prayer.  The Holy Spirit would then make our weakness in prayer one of the motives to urge us on to discover the secret and obtain the blessing of full abiding in Christ.

--Andrew Murray (excerpt taken from Teach Me To Pray)

I have not reached this abiding that Andrew Murray speaks of, but his writings encourage me that abiding is the way... to answered prayer, yea the richest relationship available to have with God.  How much I aspire to be as close as John the Beloved and rest my head upon the chest of Christ, and exchange secret counsels!  

Journal entry from August 22nd

I used to cry over lost souls,

broken communities,

and traumatized nations.

These days I'm afraid I've only mustered the strength to

cry over my own soul.

You would think my best-friend had died

by how much I've carried on in such

immense sorrow.

I don't know when I started crying,

nor do I see an end to my despair.

I reach for hope with every new tissue I pull close

to wipe my tears.

And what do I find?

Only a deeper spot of pain,

that evokes an irruption of a fresh flood of tears.

My face feels raw and tired from the constant drying,

only to make room for more.

What can I do?

When will this end?

Is this my plight in life?

And I shall not find comfort in any of my friendships.

On the contrary, they tend to more remind me

of my loathsome state-

it's almost hard to see others smile, yet it still lifts my spirit--

to witness a smile when I'm unable to produce one myself.

God, I know that life is a gift

and I should treat it so.

I don't think I could live knowing I was the reason

Your dream of me didn't come fully to pass.

God, please save me from myself.

Please have compassion on me.

Please have mercy on me.

Please talk to me.

Please be gentle.

You see me-- I've not only left my father's house,

I've left my country too. Fully vulnerable.

Please Father me.

I've nowhere to go and no one to guide

and love me wholly.

I'm just used to Egypt

I found myself relating to the Israelites in a whole new way this morning. Their story of wanting to return to Egypt hit close to home in a way that it never has before. I realized that when the Israelites were complaining to Moses and expressing their desire in returning to Egypt, they were not saying that slavery was a better way of life. What they were really expressing is that the Known seemed better than the Unknown at that point in their journey.

Despite how truly beautiful this new life on the other side of the Atlantic is... there are still so many unknowns. I found myself reminiscing of the various places I have lived and the seasons of life I was living during those times. I seemed to only think about the good things. The fruit that came from those seasons, the wisdom I gleaned, the character that grew... It must have been the same for the Israelites. They must have been thinking about their children growing, the laughter despite the hardship, the little that God gave them to survive such conditions seemed like wealth to them at that moment. At least when they were in Egypt they knew their purpose. Build the Kingdom of Pharaoh. It wasn't a great purpose, but it was still direction they didn't have to struggle to discover. Now they were in a foreign place, being led by a newbie, without a clear purpose or direction.

Yeah, I can relate to wanting to return to Egypt...

Father, help me to trust you amidst the unknown. I don't want to miss out on the land flowing with milk & honey for the land of Known. You promise to make the rough places smooth. To turn the darkness into light before me... and to never forsake me. You promise to lead me by ways I have not known. (Isaiah 42:16). I choose to trust you in this unknown.

What I really like about God::..

I love that God does not withhold Himself in the slightest from me.  He doesn't have limits to what He is able to give.  This is good, because we are a really needy people.  Opposed to friends who have limits to their friendship, for no other reason but that they are limited themselves.

bit by the love bug!

Have you ever been bit by the love bug? It feels like nothing in your little world could go wrong... and everyone is drawn to you! I've been bit a few memorable times, including recently. I know this time is utterly different than anytime before. Because this love bug has come out of a greater, living reality of what it means to depend on God. I'm gradually realizing my purpose is to be loved and to love. And apart from the grace of God I can produce no good thing! Being dependent on God means to not worry, "be anxious for nothing" as scripture declares. If I'm being obedient and walking the path God has laid out for me, then what do I have to worry about?

I used to say, "It's not God that I don't trust, it's my ability to hear Him that I don't trust." Yet, even in that statement it proves my distrust in God. By me not trusting that He knows me well enough to properly guide me. This segues into another interrealted topic: how much does God really love me? Not only have I been learning His love, but I've been experiencing His pleasure in me. I've become more comfortable with my skin, realizing God created it and said it was good. How do I articulate God's delight? hmmm... For instance, the other morning I was driving into work, looking into the brillant sunrise displaying a vast spectrum of colors, and started conversing with the Lord. "Father," I exclaimed, "are You delighted in me?" Emotions were evoked instantaneously at this request with tears filling my ducts! I felt Him whisper, "Oh Jessie, I am SO delighted in you!" And He went on to tell me how proud He was of me, exclaiming that He knew about the tough choices I have had to make on my own, and I have chosen rightly. And He told me His faithfulness was like that brillant sunrise and I could count on His mercy being new every morning! I continued to linger on the thought of there not being one day that the sun has ceased to rise in my life.  How faithful my God is to me!

Yes, so God's love has been invading every fiber of my being... and this is where I left off to finish later... and lo I have forgotten my thought... sigh.. maybe it will come back.  In the meantime, watch out for that Love Bug;0)

choosing faith

A young man in his twenties came to receive prayer from our healing team family. His desire was to be set free from a smoking addiction. My prayer partner and I earnestly prayed for his request, asking Father to give Him grace and set him free. I looked at the young man after moments of prayer and asked him, "How do you feel?" He responded, "Weird. I've never felt like this before, it feels good!" He proceeded to ask me for a garbage as he reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and crushing them with his hands! That young man walked away with a nearness of God he had never experienced before. 

My thoughts: I rejoiced over the victory just won in his life. The battle will more than likely continue for him and he might slip sometimes, but God's grace will strengthen him in those times if he just turns to Him. People will more than likely doubt that he was completely set free of his addiction (even ones reading this right now). What will I believe? I decided in that moment what that young man needs, and what I believe God desires from me, is to have faith for this man. I choose to keep faith in the power of my God and His sincere touch upon this young mans life. Others may doubt, they may even criticize him for believing God likes him enough to set him free. Yet, I will choose to put my hope and confidence in the God who is above every obstacle and has dominion over every addiction. Besides, how do we even achieve the great destiny God has for each of our lives? Many times God supplies others to come alongside us to have faith for the destiny He has called us to live. I pray that you would have faith today. Faith to see the God of the impossible work miracles in your life and the lives of others He has allowed to cross your path in this journey of life. Having faith is of much greater worth in the Kingdom of God than doubting.  Choose to have faith. Who knows, He might usher His Kingdom in and through your decision to believe. And maybe there would be more people walking free of addictions surrounding you. Maybe you just might be set free and able to walk out the fullness of His destiny for your life!

the intercessor

"If revival depended on your prayers, would it happen?"  I remember this question being asked by the leader of a team I was part of my sophomore year in college.  She wasn't trying to tell us we had a poor prayer life, although one thought those thoughts, instead she was provoking us.  This memory came to me because of a similar situation arising tonight between me and God.  Sometimes I think of corporate prayer as God's wisdom to keep us humble.  When we see a breakthrough, prayer being answered, we cannot attribute it to any one person.  With so many people praying so many prayers, it is impossible to conclude that breakthrough came upon the prayers of one or a few.  Well, tonight I felt God turn it around on me as the whole house was engaged in prayer over a particular life or death situation for one of our members.  I felt Him say, "Jessie, pray as if her life depended on your prayers and believe that your prayers are what gives her life."  There was such a boldness and tenacity that came within my spirit at that very moment.  The prayers I prayed at that moment could be felt throughout my entire being!  Furthermore, God shared that this is the life of an intercessor.  At one point the life of Israel was dependent upon the intercession of Moses.  Moses beseeched God continually.  I just thought of the weightiness upon Moses.  The intimacy he shared with God.  God raised Moses up because His true desire was to see Israel restored to Himself.  Israel's sustenance depended on Moses' intercession  Someone, some people, some place is dependent upon my prayers.  This realization came very strong to me tonight.