Dear Amy,
How can we relate to our Heavenly Father when he leaves our most earnest and desperate prayers unanswered?
[Jesus said] “Ask and it will be given to you;
… how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
― Matthew 7:7, 11
“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
― John 14:14
But unanswered prayer is a real thing. How can we deal with it? Many have grappled with this, and much has been written. Some have said, the Lord always answers prayer: sometimes yes; sometimes no; sometimes not yet. I find this glib and unhelpful. Because sometimes there is silence.
Imagine a husband and father, let’s call him Mark, a faithful servant of the Lord, suffering with severe health issues for so many years, for whom we have been faithfully, earnestly praying, confident that the Lord hears and is powerful to heal. Except he doesn’t, and this man dies, leaving his grieving wife, Grace, and their eight-year-old son, Callum. And from the Lord, only silence. What kind of answer to prayer is that? How is that a reasonable response to desperate prayers offered from a broken heart?
There is another way to see this. Unanswered prayer is an invitation into relationship. An invitation into intimacy. How does this work? Let’s imagine a conversation.
You: “Why did Mark have to die? Don’t you care?”
God: silence
You: “Couldn’t you have done something?”
God: silence
You: “He loved you, didn’t he? Did you love him? You did love him, didn’t you?”
God: silence, then, “Yes, Amy, I loved him. I love him still.”
You: “What about Grace and little Callum? This is breaking my heart.”
God: long pause, then, “Mine too, Amy. Let’s sit together for a while.”
intimate, healing silence
Our Heavenly Father grieves over his broken world, and the suffering his people bear. Let’s sit with him, and grieve also, in the intimacy of his healing presence. And in the meantime,
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
― Romans 8:18-21
Sit with the Lord in the silence of the unanswered prayer, Amy, in the intimacy of his healing presence 🙏