Session 5 - Unanswered Prayer (The Prayer Course)

 The Prayer Course

Session 5: Unanswered Prayer

Key verse

“Your will be done” – Matthew 6:10

In this session we’ll be tackling the challenges and realities when our prayers aren’t answered.

 

Bible passages

Mark 14:32-36, Daniel 3, Romans 5:3-5

 

 

The Bible is honest about unanswered prayer – we are part of a faith that is all about wrestling.

God’s world, God’s war, God’s will.

God’s silence is not the same as his absence.

 

What did you find most helpful or most challenging in the video?

The suggestion that we expect God to come in on a white horse and save the day, or, using the analogy from the video, a helicopter ready to air lift us out, of our situation. This is not supported anywhere in scripture. In fact, looking at what God did in sending His Son to earth, more often He parachutes Himself right in to our situation instead.

Practical suggestions such as to ask “where”, rather than “why” give me a plan and a starting point, and I’m grateful for this kind of teaching. To ask God, “Where are you in this situation?” and to allow Him to draw nearer to me rather than accusing Him by asking why He’s not acting in the way I want, when I want Him to.

There were three suggested reasons as to why a prayer might be left unanswered: God’s World, God’s War, and God’s Will.

God’s World – Some prayers aren’t answered because of the way God made the world to work; laws of nature etc. God cannot break His own laws and statutes. They gave the analogy of a brick. I can pray as hard as I want but God will never make a brick float on water. It simply won’t happen because that’s not how it was designed.

God’s War – There is an enemy. Satan is actively opposing the will of God. More on this in Session 8.

God’s Will – Sometimes God just says no. God knows best. Choose to trust even though you don’t understand.

  

How has the reality of unanswered prayer affected your relationship with God?

Have you ever felt God’s silence/absence in seasons of your life and faith? How did you respond?

Pete shared about his friend’s death and how he questioned why God didn’t heal him, asking, “God, where were you?” I shared a few sessions ago that I had a similar struggle when my prayers went unanswered, both for Paula and for baby Blake. My faith in God never wavered but I did question His presence and desire to help us, as well as my own prayer “ability”.

It was interesting to note that our entire faith is centred on struggling. Jacob’s name was changed after he wrestled with God. “Israel” literally means “to strive, or to struggle”. To question is not to unbelieve. Even in our questioning, we still believe in God and, in reality, the very fact that we are questioning Him and wondering why He hasn’t answered shows that we do believe in Him and that we do have faith in His ability.

I found the notion that Jesus is living with unanswered prayer to be refreshing -it’s the first time I had ever considered this. In John 17:20-21, Jesus prays His final prayer before He is apprehended and crucified, and He sees fit to end His final prayer on earth in intercession for us, all of His followers for all time, that we would be in unity as one, "I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” Look around you, you’ll see hundreds of different denominations all claiming to follow the same Jesus, and unfortunately, there is no unison to be found.

Jesus’ prayer isn’t even outside of God’s will – in Psalm 133:1, it states, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” (If you’ve seen The Chosen series and you’re anything like me, you’ll have that little earworm in your head for weeks now, I’m sorry!) so there is no logical reason that it remains unanswered. Jesus knows in great detail what it is like to live with unanswered prayer.

The reminder that God’s silence doesn’t mean God’s absence was such an epiphany to me. I’ve read it and heard it more times than I can count, but there was something about hearing it in this context that just really drove it home for me. God will never leave us, nor forsake us. It tells us so explicitly in Hebrews 13:5. Even when He feels a million miles away, when He seems so far detached that we can never reach Him – Jesus bridges that gap. He is always present but, in these seasons, He may withdraw His presence and immerse us in a spiritual darkness, that we might grow into maturity and grow in faith.

  

How do you think we can get better, as communities, at dealing with the realities and challenges of unanswered prayer?

For me, I had a real challenge within myself, where I looked around at other people and concluded that I must not be as good, or as spiritual, or as worthy as them, because God wasn’t answering my prayer. The truth though, is that He might not have been answering theirs either. Nobody likes to share things that haven’t gone very well, but they’ll jump up and give a glorious testimony as soon as they do.

I believe that it is time we stopped putting on a show. Social media plays a huge role in the way we communicate, as well as the content of what we communicate and to whom. I see perfect snapshots of other people’s families and lives, with a sparkling home and not a hair out of place, and then I look at my own photo albums and it’s easy to feel like a lesser mother when my house is a mess and my kids have their dinner down their shirts. I’m not suggesting that all of those perfect snapshots are staged, but my snapshots are raw, and real, and absolutely brutally honest, and I love them just as they are. I’d much rather see truthful depictions of life which help me to feel more normal and encourage others to feel normal too.

That vulnerability is something which Jesus models Himself. Read in Mark 14:32-36 when Jesus is in the garden at Gethsemane. Notice how vulnerable He is with His friends. In verse 34, He says, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death”. Other versions use the phrases, “crushed with grief”, “consumed with sorrow”, “exceedingly sorrowful”, and “deeply grieved”. In direct opposition to what I would do, He pours out His heart and asks His friends for support in His hour of need. Yet even when He shared His anguish with His friends, He pursued the Father more.

In what I would consider to be one of the most important verses in the whole of the Bible, Jesus Christ throws Himself to the ground in complete submission and cries heart-wrenching sobs, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will." (verse 36). He anchored himself in God’s love by calling out for His Abba, His father. He first affirms God’s love and then His power, “you can do anything”. This radical honesty and vulnerability in asking God to take the cup, followed immediately by the knowledge that the Father’s will is the only thing that truly matters, in the phrase that I try to adopt in all of my prayers: “not my will, Lord, but Yours be done!”

This prayer of relinquishment is vital to many stories and events in the Bible. The biggest example coming to mind is in Mary’s obedience to the Lord. It doesn’t come easily to us, but trusting God and being open to His will allows Him to grace us with the strength we need so that we can choose to die to our own desires and say “yes” to His.

  

How can we encourage one another in “faithfulness” as well as “faith”?

Pete tells us that faith is god’s gift to us, and our faithfulness is our gift back to Him. Faithfulness is learning to trust God and declaring that we trust that He will do the thing we have asked Him to, but even if He doesn’t, we are still going to follow Him anyway. When our prayers don’t seem to working but we’re still true to God – that’s faithfulness.

Romans 5:3-5 reminds us that our tribulations bring about perseverance, which in turn brings character, which then brings about hope. As Pete says, “even when we don’t understand, we can still trust.”

I’m keen to break the stigma relating to mental health issues, and try to encourage everyone to share their bad as well as their good days. I model this myself by sharing my own struggles on my Facebook page, publicly for the world to see. Unfortunately, as much as there has been a shift in the way these issues are recognised, it is still very much a taboo subject. It is time that we stopped the charade and told the truth. Sometimes I’m not okay, and that’s okay.  It’s our responsibility, our duty as Christians, to support those around us who are struggling.

We must not tell a struggling brother or sister, directly or indirectly, that when things don’t go their way, they must not have enough faith, or that they must have some kind of sin or spirit or bondage within them. Our job is to support and love them even as Christ loves us, warts and all. Offer to pray with and for them. Help to carry their burden. Invite them to spill their hurting hearts and overactive minds over a coffee. Just be there for them and support them in whatever they need. Be the tangible force of love in a world where there is none.