Unanswered Prayers?
If you’ve been around long enough, you probably remember the popular Garth Brooks song, “Unanswered Prayers.” It’s a catchy song, and one we’re tempted to cling to when we experience the opposite of what we pray for. Brooks runs through the things he thought he wanted in his youth that didn’t turn out, leaving him to wonder if his prayers had gone unanswered. As he looks back on his life and where he is today, he concludes that God actually gives good gifts in those unanswered prayers. What we pray for in our youth might not be the thing we want in maturity and old age.
But is it true that God leaves prayers unanswered? In the Old Testament, God’s refusal to listen to the prayers of his people was a sign of judgment. But in the New Testament, we see a constant refrain of God delighting in the prayers of his people—and delighting in answering them. In Matthew 6:10, we’re given clarity on our prayers and how God answers. He might not answer the way we want him to, but he always gives us his best. And he always answers, it just may not be the one we asked for.
This volume of TGC’s Disciplines of Devotion series invites women to stir their affections for God by cultivating the biblical practice of prayer.
While Brooks is no theologian, Charles Spurgeon is. In his devotional, Morning and Evening, he writes this about “unanswered prayers”:
Unanswered petitions are not unheard. God keeps a file for our prayers–they are not blown away by the wind, they are treasured in the King’s archives. This is a registry in the court of heaven wherein every prayer is recorded. Tested believer, your Lord has a tear bottle in which the costly drops of sacred grief are put away, and a book in which your holy groanings are numbered. Before long, your suit shall prevail. Can’t you be content to wait a little while? Won’t your Lord’s time be better than yours? Before long He will comfortably appear, to your soul’s joy, and make you put away the sackcloth and ashes of lengthy waiting, and put on the scarlet and fine linen of full fruition.
Spurgeon is unpacking a truth often repeated in Scripture. God doesn’t keep time like we keep time. His ways are not our ways (Isa. 55:8). What is unanswered to us is simply moving right on his timetable for him. There is not an unanswered prayer, but there are times, as Dale Ralph Davis says, “God has the slows.” So we are in a posture of waiting far longer than we would want or feel comfortable with.
What do we do while we wait? If we believe Garth Brooks was wrong, how do we reconcile the gap between our prayers and God’s deliverance?
The Psalms are the prayer book of waiting Christians. In many ways, if you’re waiting, you could open to a psalm and find a balm for your waiting heart. But let’s look at one to guide us as we wait for prayers to be answered.
Pray Without Ceasing
This is a biblical concept, but if we’re honest, it’s hard to practice (1 Thess. 5:17). We have jobs. We have lives. Non-stop praying is inefficient and impractical. But I think the Bible gives examples how to make prayer a constant in our life.
Look at the words of Psalm 5:3:
In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;
in the morning I plead my case to you and watch expectantly.
The implication here is that upon waking he cries out to the Lord. My default when I’m waiting on God to act is to act myself. When I feel out of control, I start to grasp for more control. But what would happen to my heart in waiting if before my feet hit the floor—or my hands grabbed the phone—I prayed? The promise in verse 3 is that when we pray, God hears. The psalmist repeats his action twice. He knows God hears his voice, and he pleads with hope. He knows God will act, so he prays. And because he prays, he can watch, knowing God will move.
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Stay Near Community
When a woman is waiting on her baby to be born, every day feels like an eternity. When she is at the grocery store, people ask when she’s due. When she’s at church, people ask her, “How long?” But along with that, women share their stories of waiting with her. Whether it’s a horror story of carrying long past your due date or the commiserating of the discomfort of waiting, the community of fellow mothers helps a waiting mom get by on those final days that feel like years. The same is true for us in our waiting on God to answer. The psalmist doesn’t wait alone. Look at verse 7:
But I enter your house
by the abundance of your faithful love. —Ps. 5:7
In the Old Testament, “your house” is universally understood as the Temple, the place where God dwelt and his people heard from him. In their waiting, they prayed before they acted, but they also gathered with God’s people.
There is comfort in a shared sorrow. We weren’t meant to wait alone. There are others who can bear with or empathize with the sorrow and waiting we endure.
What would happen to my heart in waiting if before my feet hit the floor—or my hands grabbed the phone—I prayed?
Take Refuge in God While You Wait
The psalmist often goes through his prayers and complaints before he comes to a place of resolution. He is honest about his struggles, but then he must come to terms with it and rest. The same is true in this psalm. Look at verse 11:
But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;
let them shout for joy forever. —Ps. 5:11
Like the temptation to act before we pray, there is a temptation to find our refuge in things or people we can see. Waiting is hard, and unlike Garth Brooks, when we’re waiting we don’t have the perspective of hindsight. We don’t know when it will end. But there is an anxiety that builds when we find refuge in anything but the Lord. Everything else will fail us, but he will be a constant protective force as we wait on him to move in our requests.
Like you, I am living with the ache of unanswered prayers. Maybe like me you find yourself wanting to settle for the quick fix or illusion of control, and you find yourself coming up empty. Let the psalms be your guide and the Lord be your refuge as you live with prayers that haven’t been answered yet. There is no prayer he doesn’t hear or move compassion with to respond.
Courtney Reissig is the author of Prayer.
