What do we mean when we say, “God answered our prayers” and what do we mean when we say that he hasn’t? Are there really prayers that God doesn’t answer?
The old cliché is that God has three answers for our prayers, “yes,” “no,” and “wait.” This implies that God always answers prayers, but the answers take on a variety of forms. Sometimes those answers are not exactly what we hope for, but they are answers, nonetheless. Do we really believe this to be true? If we don’t, why do we continue to repeat it? If we do believe it why would we ever talk about God not answering prayers?
The reality is that when we talk about God “answering our prayers” we most often mean that God answered our prayers the way that we wanted him to answer. You never hear someone go in front of the church and say, “God answered my prayer - he said ‘no.’ You don’t hear many people share with others that, “God answered my prayer by saying, ‘I need to wait.’ We do not celebrate “no” and “wait” answers to prayer, we only celebrate “yes” answers. Since our language often implies that God either answers or doesn’t, everything other than “yes” means he didn’t answer. So, when we talk about answered prayers we usually mean “I got what I wanted.” When we don’t get what we want, we start looking for reasons why God didn’t answer. But it is not so much that God didn’t answer our prayer, its just that he didn’t give us the answer we wanted and we want to know why.
Assuming that something is wrong when we don’t get the answer that we want, oversimplifies prayer and how we expect God to respond to us. When pressed to explain to a new believer what prayer is, we will often say that it is merely talking to God. But in our actions and in the rest of our talk about prayer, the implication is that prayer is just a continuous string of requests that we hope God will fulfill. Our prayers should be much more than that, though - praises, laments, meditation, listening; those kinds of prayers don’t really need “answers” they just need someone else to be part of the exchange. Prayers really should be conversations with God.
When we talk about “answered prayers,” then, we imply two things; that prayers are nothing more than requests and that sometimes God chooses to ignore our requests and not give us an answer. I don’t believe that either of those are correct implications, yet we continually perpetuate those ideas with the “Christian” language that we use.
If God sometimes ignores our requests, does that mean that God sometimes ignores my other prayers as well? Am I sometimes praying to empty space because God has decided that I am not worthy of his attention? Is that what we mean by “unanswered prayer?” I would hope not. I think most Christians, if pressed on the issue, would agree that God always listens, but may not always take action, at least not in the way we hope for. So does that constitute “unanswered prayer” and/or does that necessarily mean that there is a cause, within my control, for God’s lack of action? I would say, “no,” and “maybe.” Cause and effect is not always easy to see in our prayer life. When someone is sick, we pray for healing. Usually there are both righteous and unrighteous people praying for the healing. Sometimes there is healing, sometimes there is not. Is the lack of healing, unanswered prayer, or just an answer that we don’t like? Is the healing the result of more righteous people praying than unrighteous or because there was one super righteous person praying? Is there a cause and effect relationship between those who are healed and those who are not? When my sister died from cancer, is it because my family and friends didn’t pray right or because we were not holy enough? Did God not answer our prayers, or did he simply choose to give us an answer that we did not want or did not understand at the time?
Certainly there is scripture that tells us that there are ways that we can enhance our odds of having our requests granted, but there is never a guarantee. Paul certainly wanted the “thorn in his flesh” removed (2 Corinthians 12:7-10), but God did not grant his request. Are we to conclude that Paul did not pray earnestly enough - after all, he only prayed three times? Or was there something else in Paul’s life that stood in the way of “answered prayer?” Clearly Paul did not view his situation as unanswered prayer. Instead he saw God’s answer as different from what he himself wanted, and, ultimately, he saw the answer as better, even though it caused him hardship.
Even Jesus cried out to God to remove the burden of dying on the cross. He couldn’t have possibly believed that there was another way, but he prayed about it anyway, and followed with the acknowledgement that ultimately it was more important for God’s will to be done, even if it meant he had to do what he did not want to do. Was Jesus’ prayer answered? He certainly wasn’t delivered from dying on the cross, but to say his prayer wasn’t answered would be ludicrous. It would be even more ridiculous to conclude that there was something in Jesus’ life that prevented the prayer from being answered.
Jesus’ prayer was not as much a request as it was a lament, a conversation with God communicating his distress. I am certain that Jesus already knew what the answer had to be, but he talked to his Father about it anyway, because that is much of what prayer is - real conversations about life.
Maybe our prayer lives would be better if we just did more of that - shared our lives with God, instead of always making so many requests of God. Maybe our prayer life would be better if we focussed as much on being who he wants us to be as we do on what we want him to give. When we do make requests, maybe we shouldn’t be so busy looking for the answers we want to see, but instead should spend more time looking for God at work in the answers that he gives.
