Once when one of my daughters was going through a difficult time I said, “I am praying for you. I am praying that the Lord will deliver you from this trial. And, if I could, I would take away in an instant the hardship you are experiencing.” I was speaking as a father who saw her pain and who so desperately wanted to remove it. In retrospect, I realised that I was speaking as a merely human father who is limited both in knowledge and wisdom. I don’t have a big enough picture to know what the ultimate best is.
As later I reflected on our conversation, I thought about the gracious reality that my daughter is a child of God and that, as her heavenly Father, he loves her profoundly more than I could ever love her. The thought struck me that, as well-intentioned as were my desires for her immediate deliverance, they were also a bit wrongheaded. Her heavenly Father, who can immediately take away her affliction, had, for good and wise reasons, chosen not to. My human affection yielded a human solution in line with my imperfect wisdom. God’s infinite affection and his perfect wisdom yields what, in the end, is the best solution. I want to suggest that this understanding motivates rather than demotivates perseverance in prayer. When unsure of what to pray, rather than merely kneeling in confusion, I need to pray something.
Grasping the theological reality of God’s infinite affection, perfect wisdom, and limitless power results, not in a do-nothing fatalism characterised by, “Oh well, let’s just wait and see” but rather keeps us focused on our heavenly Father, especially when we pray. Equipped with this theology (knowledge of God) we are equipped with faith to keep praying. So, when you are confronted with unanswered prayer, don’t just kneel there; rather, pray something. When the trial remains despite fervent prayer, keep praying until the Lord either answers or changes your petition. The Lord Jesus provides us with three petitions that will help us when unsure of what to pray. He taught these to his disciples and, by extension, he also teaches them to us (Matthew 6:9–10).
First, pray for God to be glorified either in answering your prayer or in how he chooses to not answer your prayer. Even when the trial remains despite our prayers, we know it is always God’s will that his name be hallowed (glorified, honoured) everywhere and at all times. Including times of seeming silence.
Second, pray that our Father will use the seemingly endless trial in such a way that his kingdom will advance. Pray that the trial will result in a greater appreciation of his universal and everlasting kingship. Realising his supreme authority empowers us to bow the knee in happy submission knowing that he, and not the trial is King.
Third, pray that the revealed will of our Triune God will be obeyed on earth as it is perfectly settled in heaven (Psalm 119:89). As the Sunday school children teach us, “Obedience is the very best way to show that you believe.” When trials persist amid unanswered prayer, our response of continual reverent and loving obedience to the one who hears our prayers is a profound way of both glorifying his name and a means of practically experiencing and revealing kingdom living.
Prayer is not a magical means of getting everything we want. Often what we want is counterproductive to what we need—Christlikeness. And our Father in heaven, of course, knows this. Tim Keller observed that “God will either give us what we ask or give us what we would have asked if we knew everything he knows.” This helpfully reminds us that our knowledge is extremely nearsighted but that God knows all and that he has the wisdom to use the best means to achieve the best ends. With this conviction, our “unanswered” prayers actually motivate us to keep praying, to keep trusting, to keep anticipating that God’s “got this.” But perhaps, more to the point, realise that your heavenly Father has “got you.” And so, while with our limited knowledge we “maak ’n plan” and pray accordingly, we can do so while resting in our Father’s love, wisdom, and power to answer according to our need. In the end, this is always for our good to the praise of God’s glory.
I often find myself desiring and determined to do what is in my power to fix what is broken in the lives of those I love. Seeing their pain—of various kinds—I find it hard to simply stand by and observe. Rather, I try and do something about it. That is fine. I am told in Scripture that, if there is good to be done, I am responsible to try and do it (James 4:17). However, I am also learning that what I conclude to be the best outcome does not always align with God’s wise determination. Therefore, I keep praying, but with faith, not in the outcome, but rather in my Father who is able to do far more abundantly than all I could ask and even think (Ephesians 3:20). Such an outlook, rather than paralysing me to either just stand or kneel here, moves me to pray something to the one who can do anything.
Doug