The video above will remind you of the heart of God when you are discouraged by unanswered prayer.
I think the reason that prayer is hard is because of what seems to be unanswered prayer in my life. And there’s all the usual explanations of course.
Some of you have thought of them already.
We often hear, “Well, God did answer, just not in the way you expected.” Awesome.
Or this one, “God always answers prayers it’s just that the answer is always either yes, no, or wait.” Okay so God is like my parents.
Or more seriously this one, “You know, if only you had prayed more.” Or, “if only you had more faith.” Or, “if only you had better motives. That’s your problem, Britt, your motives were wrong.”
Or this one, “Well, you know, really prayer is us adjusting to God’s will.”
I believe that all of those things from Scripture have some degree of truth to them. I’m just saying that none of them helped me in the dark night of unanswered prayers.
When my eight-year-old daughter died of cancer—when all I did, all we did for years was pray that she wouldn’t, and then she did—I heard all of these.
I’m just saying, in the dark night of unanswered prayer they didn’t help.
And for unanswered prayer, I have no answer. But I think that Jesus suggests an answer to us here in this text when he says, “Your Father, who is in heaven, is good and wants to give you good gifts” (Matthew 7:11, paraphrased). Now that is both a non-answer and the best and only answer.
“Why did it go this way God, and not that way?”
“Your Father, who is in heaven, is good and wants to give you good gifts” (Matthew 7:11, paraphrased).