Unanswered Prayer (1)

A few months ago a friend wrote me about unanswered prayer. I pondered what he wrote for a few weeks, and only then did I begin a written response, which required more pondering and time. In the hope that it might contribute something to others, I'm posting my reply in a few sections, here is the first: 

My friend wrote:

So I confess I have unanswered prayers that seem to be in the will of God very much----but obviously must not be..  Prayers of healing for Nancy’s hip as well as for others who are struggling, prayers for Revival and church growth, prayers for …., well, you know.

It’s hard to tell people to ask, seek, and knock, when they have been and their answers haven’t come---sometimes over many years….Yet----Jesus promised so I preach it…It is only to be answered in consummation of all things?

I replied:

 

Ah my friend…I’ve been pondering what you wrote, your heart.

 

A temptation is to provide artificial answers, to rationalize away the dilemma, to place blame, to draw conclusions that may not be so, to force closure when there may be no closure…to mitigate the Cross.

 

We hear well-meaning people say dumb things at funerals, in hospitals, in hospice…perhaps a warning to us…but then, I’m sure we can find some books that tie up the loose ends and answer your (our) questions…whose authors have not heeded the warning.

 

I am reminded of Teresa of Avila who was having a particularly bad day. When she complained to Christ, He reminded her of their friendship. Her reply was, “Lord, if this is the way You treat your friends, it is no wonder You have so few of them.”

 

I cannot comprehend that you, as a husband, ought not to be praying for your wife’s healing…it seems to me, dumb ass that I am, that not praying would be outside the will of our heavenly Father. If the ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib, then I am certain you ought to be praying for Nancy’s healing.

 

I am also certain that there are things beyond the veil that we cannot see clearly, but that we can sense and participate in (Col. 1:24).

 

How do we teach and preach these things? I dare say it is almost impossible to do so in our present situation of instant Christianity and spiritual dumbness and cotton candy teachers and consumers. I am not being sarcastic; I am stating the truth. To look at a verse, or a passage, in isolation from living in the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ is to pretty much guarantee that we will limit ourselves to superficial engagement…at best.

 

A challenge is that people simply do not want to hear anything that requires prolonged engagement, that requires them to live in mystery, without neat closure, requiring surrender to Christ; and they certainly don’t want to have to think about anything for longer than a television commercial, or to strive to understand what they believe and why they believe it.

 

We are satisfied to see the acts of God and not know His ways; we want to experience the verse and not the passage, or the passage and not the Biblical book, or the Biblical book and not the Bible. We want the benefits of the Cross without the Christ of the Cross.

 

Here is an example: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you….In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, If you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.” (John 15:5; 16:23 – 24).

 

Now then, when someone asks me about these verses and about unanswered prayer, how am I to respond? What do they want to hear from me? They want to hear an answer in 30 seconds or less because they don’t have time for much more…not really. Even if we are having coffee together, just the two of us, the other person still wants an answer that can be nicely included in a “study Bible” (they are hardly conducive to “study” because they require no time or investment).

 

Here is what people don’t want, they don’t want to hear, “Tell me about John chapters 13 – 17, what does this passage look like in your life?” We have the same situation with Matthew 6:7 – 11; there a response might be, “Tell me about Matthew chapters 5 – 7, what do they look like in your life?”

 

In other words, the above verses in John are set within the context of chapters 13 – 17, chapters that include a call to wash one another’s feet, to love our brethren even as our Lord Jesus loves us, to lay our lives down for our friends, to live separate and distinct from the world, to abide in Christ, to know what it is to live in the koinonia of the Trinity and for that koinonia to extend to our brothers and sisters, and for us to be sent into the world even as the Father sent our Lord Jesus into the world.

 

If the person asking me questions about the prayer verses of John chapters 13 – 17 is not prepared to live in these chapters, then the person is wasting his time and my time. Furthermore, if I cater to his desire for a short answer then I am facilitating the toxic disease that has infected the North American professing church. We can’t “win,” in that most of what the general “Christian” population reads, watches, and listens to is geared to nurture its consumerism, which ensures that it will not encounter the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ.