OPINION - Unanswered prayer

Most of the toughest questions about the Christian faith are not abstract or philosophical but are deeply personal. Whether it’s the problem of suffering and evil, or doubts about whether God could love somebody like us, or the questions and doubts that arise when we feel our prayers go unanswered.

You don’t need to have been a Christian for very long to run into the challenge of prayers feeling as if they are bouncing off the ceiling. So if you’re wrestling with this question, you’re not alone. The famous Christian writer C. S. Lewis said that unanswered prayer, especially as he prayed for his sick and dying mother as a boy, was one reason he abandoned faith for thirty years. Lewis wrote:

if you’re wrestling with this question, you’re not alone.

"The trouble with God is that he is like a person who never acknowledges one’s letters and so, in time, one comes to the conclusion either that he does not exist or that you have got the address wrong." (1)

At this point it’s easy for atheists to scoff and say “I told you so!” but the challenge is there’s no solace in secularism. If atheism is true there is no God to be silent but worse than that, the universe is utterly impassive and entirely doesn’t care. And when suffering comes, or you see injustice, or when life feels unfair, well suck it up: if atheism is true, we live in a world where evil prospers, the strong flourish at the expense of the weak, and one day everything ends in the frozen heat death of the universe.

If prayer isn’t real, if God doesn’t exist, that wouldn’t be some kind of triumphal win for atheism, but rather the bleak and depressing recognition that humans are, as atheist cosmologist Lawrence M. Krauss put it, ‘a 1% bit of pollution in the universe’. (2) Maybe the very fact that we recoil at that suggestion is itself a clue that we are more than just cosmic debris; and that the spiritual instinct most humans find within themselves is a clue to a bigger story.

For Christians, that bigger story is centred around the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—the Bible repeatedly proclaiming that if you want to know what God is like, then look at Jesus. And in the one and only prayer that he taught his followers to pray, the words we know today as The Lord’s Prayer, Jesus emphasised that God is relational. “Want to know how to pray?” said Jesus, “well, start like this this: ‘Our Father, in heaven’”. No other religion on the planet makes the bold claim that you can pray to the very Lord and Creator of the universe using relational language like that.

“Want to know how to pray?” said Jesus, “well, start like this this: ‘Our Father, in heaven’”

But it’s that deeply relational quality to Christian prayer that can make it feel very tough if it seems that our prayers are going unanswered. If God were simply a distant, remote PO box number to whom we sent our missives with no expectation of any response, we might be able to shrug our shoulders and say “Well, what did you expect?” But that’s not the God of the Christian faith, the God who revealed himself in Jesus, and thus we can feel abandoned, or forgotten, or just plain baffled when we think our prayers have been ignored.

But if that’s the place you find ourself in, there are some questions that it can be helpful to ask. The first is this: “if God feels distant, who has moved?” Whilst it is not always the case, the reality is that sometimes it is we who have walked away, we who have allowed our relationship with God to grow distant and cold. Perhaps we’ve allowed other priorities to take the place of God in our lives in which case maybe the place to begin is with seeking a reset in our relationship.

In Luke 15 Jesus tells a famous story of a son who through his own stupidity had become alienated from his father. When the son finally hits rock bottom he trudges sorrowfully back home, with a carefully prepared speech begging to be taken in as a servant. But his father sees him on the road, runs to embrace him, and welcomes him back as a son. God is like that, Jesus said, ever ready to welcome us back into his household, always ready to forgive. Perhaps if we’ve allowed ourselves to become distant from God, the place to start is by asking for forgiveness and experiencing the mercy and reconciliation of our heavenly Father.

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Second, if we are wrestling with unanswered prayer, it’s worth pausing and asking ourselves whether we’ve unconsciously begun treating prayer as a kind of a magical slot machine. Yet whilst there’s nothing wrong with asking God for our needs it’s important to remember that God is our heavenly Father and his primary desire for us is that we would grow to love and trust him and see our character refined so it’s more like Christ.

This is why prayer is good for us, even when we don’t receive the answer we would like. Those times remind us that God is not a cosmic Santa Claus but our Father, whose desire is not to grant our wishes but to draw us into deeper communion with Him. When we pray, we should be not simply chasing outcomes but seeking God Himself. The deeper we come to know God, the more we will find peace in his presence, regardless of whether we receive the answers we wanted.

prayer is good for us, even when we don’t receive the answer we would like.

Third, because God is primarily concerned with our hearts and our character, that sometimes requires learning tough lessons and so it could be that the reason we haven’t seen an answer to a particular prayer is that God wants us to learn persistence. In Luke 18, Jesus told a story about a widow who needed a judge help her obtain justice. He kept rebuffing her, so she repeatedly asked until finally the judge gave in and met her request. Jesus wasn’t suggesting that we need to pester God enough so he’ll grant our wish to get some peace, but rather Jesus was saying if an unjust judge acts like this, how much more can we expect from the truly just Judge of the universe. So don’t give up: ask, seek, knock, and be patient.

Fourth, it can be helpful to ask whether are leaning too much on your feelings. The wonder and joy of the Christian faith is that I don’t get to decide how much God loves me based on whether a particular prayer has been answered, or whether I’m feeling happy or sad, but the Bible explains that if we have any doubt what God thinks of us, then look at Jesus:

God demonstrates his love for us in this; while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Speaking of Jesus, it’s helpful to remember that Jesus himself, God’s own son, experienced the silence of heaven when on the cross he cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In Jesus, we have one who understands our pain when heaven feels silent. But the silence of heaven in the case of Jesus was for a reason—in his case, bearing the sins of the world, mine and yours, so we could enjoy God’s friendship.

We live in a broken world and are broken ourselves; and in that context prayer can sometimes feel tough. But God’s love is our unshakeable foundation and when the deep, personal questions about faith come, make sure that you’re standing on the rock of God’s love for you shown in Jesus; because that way, the storms may still batter, but you can stand firm.

don’t give up: ask, seek, knock, and be patient.

Finally, if you’re wrestling with unanswered prayer, some practical wisdom: don’t wrestle alone. Find Christian friends to pray with, who can carry you and comfort you when the valley seems dark. One friend of mine, after her husband’s untimely death, struggled with prayer for a year; but she said what made all the difference was friends who came, sat with her, and prayed with her.

Speaking of dark valleys, that language comes from a famous chapter in the Bible, Psalm 23. If you’re struggling with prayer because heaven seems silent right now, try taking words like that psalm and using them as your own prayer; praying with the words of the Bible can be very powerful.

Ultimately we may never know why a particular prayer goes unanswered; I’ve offered some thoughts above, but everybody’s story is different. There will be times when we simply need to acknowledge that we don’t know why God doesn’t intervene: we know that he is good (Jesus and the cross proves this), we know that we live in a fallen world and we can also know with certainty that one day everything that is sad and bad will become untrue when Jesus returns. Sometimes we need to hold onto that hope and trust God with our questions.

But in all of this, remember: God loves you. No matter what you’ve done, what you’re going through, what you’re wrestling with, nobody is too far from God to be encompassed by his love and offered his forgiveness in Jesus. As Deuteronomy 33:27 puts it: “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms”. Our sense of God’s presence may ebb and flow as our emotions ebb and flow, as life’s circumstances toss and batter us; but God’s love and care for us is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

Andy Bannister is the director of Solas Centre for Public Christianity. You can find out more about Andy, the books he's written and talks he's given here.

(1) Cited in Walter Hooper, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis: Family Letter 1905-1931, Vol. 1 (New York: HarperCollins, 2004) 555.

(2) Cited in Amanda Lohrey, 'The Big Nothing: Lawrence Krauss and Arse-Kicking Physics', The Monthly, October 2012 hppts://bit.ly/krauss-big-nothing (accessed 22 November 2024).