Unanswered Prayer
No matter how intimate your prayer life is, there are times when it seems that God is not answering. Like author C.S. Lewis described upon the death of his wife, “the heavens are leaden.” Sometimes, I feel like the Lord is not near when trials come my way. I feel like he’s far off, that he’s broke, and that his resources are rather limited. But that doesn’t stop me from still crying out, “Help, Lord!”
Some things that come your way are not God’s will or plan for your life. Your enemy planned them, and he’s committed to destroying you. But also, some things are allowed to come to pass that are for our benefit. We can thank God for those things in the sense that he is a sovereign God, and he intends to build up our character and our inner being.
Troubles will come and go, but a relationship with God is eternal. Rejoicing in the Lord is simply recognizing what he’s done for you — what he has provided in Jesus Christ — and for who he is. In reality, I can always rejoice, whether I’m in good or bad times, because I know they are temporary.
So, rejoicing always is rejoicing anyway. He didn’t say, “Be happy always.” Dire circumstances develop in our lives and it would be preposterous to even try to pretend we’re happy over some things that come our way. In this life, you’re going to have some tough times, and things are going to get you down from time to time. You can’t just whistle those circumstances away. But like Paul and Silas in prison (Acts 16:25), you can worship in spite of what the day has brought forth.
God has promised he will never leave me nor forsake me. He’ll not allow circumstances to get out of control. He is in control of circumstances, and these things that come my way are simply the dividends of daily living and are not going to “sink my ship.”
Sometimes, I get it so fixed in my mind how I want it to work out, that I don’t think it’s an answer to prayer until it’s worked out that way. Occasionally, I’ve realized that God already answered me, but because he didn’t do it the way I asked him to do it, I didn’t think he answered at all. One of the things I’ve had to learn in walking out an intimate prayer life is to recognize God’s answers, whether, “Yes,” “No,” or “Wait!”
There are times in my life I’ve had to go to God and I’ve said, “Lord, just be merciful to me. Do something I don’t deserve. Do something beyond anything I could possibly dream of, or even ask for. Do something, Lord, I need your help.” God answers those prayers.
One of the big helps to me was studying the word “hearing” in the Old Testament. When God says in the Old Testament, “He hears,” it means he acts, he’s already moving on it, he’s taken your case in hand.
The Apostle John, after establishing a long history of having his prayers answered, wrote, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15).
So, we have confidence that when we pray what is on God’s heart, he hears the prayers of the saints, and he’s already moving on it; it’s well under way. Remembering that when I pray fills my heart with gratitude. I say, “Oh God, you not only hear, you act. And sometimes before I say it, before I even request it, you’re already moving on my behalf.”
John Wimber, Prayer: Intimate Communication (Anaheim: Vineyard Ministries International, 1997), 16-17.
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John Wimber on Unanswered Prayer: “So, we have confidence that when we pray what is on God’s heart, He hears the prayers of the saints, and He’s already moving on it; it’s well under way. Remembering that when I pray fills my heart with gratitude. I say, “Oh God, You not only hear, You act. And sometimes before I say it, before I even request it, You’re already moving on my behalf.””
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