How Unanswered Prayers Shape Your Faith
Some prayers we won’t see the answer to until we get to heaven. That was a hard realization for me to acknowledge as months turned into years of unanswered prayers - needs that I felt God put on my heart to pray about, but there was no physical manifestation of an answer on the timeline I expected. My generation, especially, is used to instant gratification - we get everything we want fast and now, and that’s shaped how we pray in three ways:
1. We only pray for ourselves and our own needs.
I've always prayed for other people, but it made me a bit nervous because what if God didn't answer the way they hoped? What if I put God's promise on the line and He didn't come through? What if I told them God can but then He doesn't? When that happens in my life and with my prayer needs, I know how to handle it, but when I'm praying through someone else's needs - especially a new or young Christian - I worry about putting God's reputation on the line and causing someone to stumble in their new faith.
But God has taught me that it's not my job to be God's gatekeeper. He does not need me to filter out prayer requests on his behalf. He is God, and all He expects from me is to see Him for who He is - beyond human capabilities and what the world deems possible. I want to be the kind of woman who says, with full assurance, that "my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19). Not because of who I am, but because I know Him and His character that well.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. -James 5:16
"Praying" is such a common response when people share needs. Sure, we say we'll pray and maybe we'll remember once or twice. But it's rarely the same way we pray for ourselves. There is a deacon in my church, and when he leads the closing prayer after people have shared their needs, he prays for their requests like they were his very own. He holds out these needs before the throne of God - every single one - as a precious gemstone. He doesn't just list the needs, he genuinely prays.
I think the only way you pray for someone else's needs like that is if you intimately know the One you're praying to, because you know He is a good Father and that He is able to do the impossible. You come to His throne not as a guest or a frequent visitor, but as the child of God. There is a huge difference between those two categories of people praying. One is formal, distant, selfish and hesitant. The latter is contrite, reverent and intimate. You only become the latter from having a personal relationship with Jesus.
Because you have a well worn path to His throne and your knees show the signs of wear and tear, but most of all, you have a personal history of praying and seeing God move in response. Because only a daughter wakes up her Father at 3:00 am to ask for a cup of warm milk.
Do you know why the latter kind of prayer warrior goes to battle on her knees for someone else's needs like it's her own needs? Because she loves the one whom God loves. You see, prayer doesn't change God. It changes us. When you pray, you may start with your own needs and wants, but with more time spent in His presence daily, your desires fade and are replaced with His desires. And His ultimate desire is the salvation and sanctity of His Bride, which then also becomes the prayer on your breath. So, when one of God's beloveds comes and asks to pray for a need in her life, you take it in your hands like it is your own and you bring it before His throne. Her needs become yours, because you are One in Christ.
"A man's prayers for others are a very fair thermometer of his own religious condition. What he asks for them will largely indicate what he thinks best for himself; and how he asks it will show the firmness of his own faith and the fervour of his own feeling. There is nothing colder than the intercession of a cold Christian." -Alexander MacLaren
May your prayers extend beyond your own immediate needs and touch a world that still desperately needs to behold His glory.
2. We pray small, possible prayers.
It's easy to pray prayers with an immediate answer - help on an exam, a new job or some other material provision. Usually, the stakes aren't especially high on those prayers though. Sure, you take a risk, but if God doesn't answer the prayer in the way you wanted, you're still bound to be okay - disappointed, but okay.
But when was the last time you asked God for something that seemed entirely impossible from a human perspective? A need or desire you have deep in your heart that is out of your reach? I'm talking about a vision so big that only God can accomplish it. Because if prayer isn't absolutely necessary to accomplish your vision, where is God in it? Why even pray if you could do it yourself?
Yes, we need God for every breath we take. He is the source of all of our daily provision. But, He didn't create us solely to exist for the daily, ordinary things. He created us to bring glory to Him, and the way we do that is to give Him space to work in our lives - that margin where human effort ends and God's provision begins.
Those kinds of prayers are risky, because they get your hopes up...the ask is out of your control and makes you dependent on Someone else to make a way. And, if I've learned anything about praying big prayers, it's that God takes time answering them, because sometimes it's the only way He can get our attention for long enough to use our request to deepen our faith in Him and our understanding of His character...so that He can teach us to love Him solely for who He is, not only for what He can do for us.
If God was merely a genie who granted our wishes as soon as they're made, we'd only come to Him when we need something (as we are naturally already prone to do). But God isn't in the business of granting wishes. He is in the business of sanctification, so every request we place before Him is an opportunity for God to make us more like Him. With every big prayer we pray, we invite God to show His glory in our lives so that we would become a letter of recommendation, written on the heart, to be known and read by all (2 Cor. 3:2).
3. When we do pray for big, impossible prayers, we give up easily and quit early.
For some time now, God has put the call on my heart to pray for revival in our youth, specifically in the Slavic youth. There is this deep desire in me to see God shape a generation of men and women of Godly character who live set apart lives surrendered to do God's will and to work in His kingdom. But praying for a need like that feels a lot like trying to scoop out the water in the ocean with a teaspoon. You're pretty much guaranteed to exhaust yourself trying, only to see little to no material evidence of progress. So, it is easy to just give up and not do it at all. What's the point if you don't get to see the results? How would you even know your prayers are being answered? Why me?
So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. -Ezekiel 22:30
The Bible is full of men and women who stepped up to pray to God on behalf of His people. Daniel, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Esther, Moses (Ps. 106:23) and ultimately, Jesus, who continues to intercede on the behalf of His children as He sits on the right hand of the throne of God (Romans 8:34).
God is looking for people even today who will stand in the gap before Him on behalf of His people and pray for mercy. You want to see a more faithful and holy generation? PRAY. You want to see more Godly marriages established in your community or in your own life? PRAY. You want to see a loved one return to Christ or healed from an illness? PRAY. You want peace in your family or unity in your church? PRAY.
That's the thing about working in an economy that trades in eternal currency - you store up treasure in heaven, which means you can't see it until you get there. There isn't a checking account or an app that you can login into to check your balance or get a status update on your prayer request. When we do something on earth for an earthly reward or recognition, we can easily track the thank you cards, financial benefits, accolades and awards, and the visible answers. But when you pray for spiritual renewal or growth - the answers are often unseen to the human eyes for years or even a lifetime.
It's the mother praying for the salvation of her son for a decade, even as he continues to live a life away from Christ year after year.
It is a wife of a unbeliever who ushers in her children to church alone Sunday after Sunday.
It is the college girl praying for her roommate to find peace in Jesus because she sees her friend succumbing to self-harm and other destructive behavior as she seeks love and approval in all the wrong places.
It is the all the men and women in ministry who pour themselves out day after day, only to be met with blank stares, heads bowed over phone screens that provide more interesting entertainment than the Word of God, blatant disobedience to the church's teaching and constant wavering in the faith with little growth to be seen.
It is the single girl praying for a husband late into her twenties and thirties, the barren mama crying out for a baby to hold, or the woman praying for healing from the disease wrecking her body.
Where are God's answers to those prayers? How does one keep praying for those needs? For how long do you pray before you give up, because years of prayer yielded no real answers? What do you do when God is silent?
You pray until you get an answer or have full assurance that the answer will come (Luke 18:1). You pray as long as there is breath in you. Because if the answer is going to bring glory to God and has eternal value, then you must pray. Yes, even if it takes a lifetime and the answer doesn't come until after you reach heaven's gates.
That is the beauty of the Gospel. If you read the Bible from cover to cover, you'll find the Old Testament full of God's promises of a Messiah - prophets spanning generations spoke of a Savior for God's people, but the answer to those prophecies and prayers didn't come until long after the lifetimes of those prophets and prayer warriors. But it doesn't mean they're not unanswered just because the answer takes time. God works in our waiting. We see only today, while God sees eternity. As a result, our faith stays shallow and comfortable. We stay in the realm of possible and only give God a small margin in which to work and bring Him glory.
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. -John 15:7
And as I've began to learn all this, my heart breaks at all the potential we're missing out on simply because we don't know who God is and hence we don't know how to pray to Him to access all the storehouses of heaven. Yet, in His infinite grace and mercy, He waits on us, eager to change us to become more like Him, to show us more of Himself, and to give us even up to half the Kingdom should we ask for it to His glory.
application:
Draw three columns on a blank page.
In the first column, reflect about the last time you prayed and write out those requests. Don't wait and don't edit your prayers. Do it now and be honest - if your prayer was one minute long and ends up being one line, write that. Put it on paper and then look at those requests from the perspective of eternity. If all of your prayers on that page were answered, how would your life change? How would the lives of your friends and family change? How would your community change? How would this generation change? How would the world be impacted?
Now, write out in another column the deepest desires of your heart. Even the ones that have never seen the light of day (i.e., the things you want most in this life) or the prayers you buried without hope when they were left unanswered for far too long. Compare the second column to the first to see what you're actually praying about. How many from the second column made it to your actual prayers?
Finally, in a third column, write out the things God wants for His people on this earth. This one is probably the hardest one, because we have to take self out of it and apply what we know about who God is and what He wants. Personally, for me the best way to do this is to go to Scripture and pray His words and character back to Him. The trouble is, if you don't study your Bible, this column may be blank or inaccurate (aka, contrary to the teachings of the prosperity gospel movement, God's sole desire for us is not to just be happy and well off in this life). So, let's walk through an example:
Lately, my prayers for the youth in my community have been shaped by John 17:
“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me. . . . I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. Father, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth." -John 17:6,9,15,17
Many times, when I want to pray for someone else or for a larger community need, I don't know exactly what to pray. I rarely know the details of the person's situation and praying for spiritual revival of an entire generation of youth seems presumptuous and much too big. So I look to Jesus and how He prayed. I take His words and pray them back to Him. I ask the Holy Spirit to intercede and pray within God's will for the person and situation. Because where I don't have words, He does, for He is the searcher of all hearts.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. -Romans 8:26-27
As a result, my prayers are changed. They don't become a laundry list of my wants and needs or pompous prayers for someone else's requests. Instead, I find myself a humbled and surrendered vessel, praying for things that I myself could never come up with. And as I pray, I know the answer will come - tomorrow or a thousand years from now, because the prayers the Holy Spirit nudges you towards always bring glory to God and those prayers will always be answered.
I hope you keep praying small and big prayers - pray until your faith becomes rooted not in the answers (or lack of answers), but in the One who you pray to. So that even if a single big prayer you pray for your generation isn't answered in your lifetime, you will hold your peace and trust that God is still good, and that He is working even when we do not see it.