Worshipping the God of unanswered prayer
The Lord’s Prayer, and our Lenten study, begin with “Our Father, who art in Heaven hallowed be Thy name.” They end, “For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever”. Worshipful bookends. This week we study how worship can influence our reaction to unanswered prayer.
If you are lucky, God will lead you to a situation you cannot control, you cannot fix, or you cannot even understand. At that point true spirituality begins. Up to that point is all just preparation. Richard Rohr
In 2 Samuel 12, David is out of control and can’t fix the predicament he’s in. God’s prophet Nathan foretold that his sin with Bathsheba would result in the death of their child. David pleads with God for the life of his son for seven days; fasting, in sackcloth, prone on the ground. David went all in: while his son was alive David hoped for healing. He did everything he knew to change the mind of God.
It’s clear that David’s view of God does not change with changes in circumstances. When his son dies, David’s attendants are afraid David will do “something desperate”. Instead David, a very special person, gets off the ground, cleans up and goes to the house of the Lord to worship. David depends upon God’s greatness, power, majesty and splendor before and after the death of his child. David never doubt’s God’s sovereignty.
David admits his emotions, doubts and disappointments to God. Because he expresses his emotions, doubts and disappointments, he is able to regain equilibrium.
I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands,
and I would not be comforted.I remembered you, God, and I groaned;
I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.[b]You kept my eyes from closing;
I was too troubled to speak.I thought about the former days,
the years of long ago;I remembered my songs in the night.
My heart meditated and my spirit asked:“Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?”Then I thought, “To this I will appeal:
the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand.I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.I will consider all your works
and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”Your ways, God, are holy.
What god is as great as our God?You are the God who performs miracles;
you display your power among the peoples.Psalm 77:1-14
Later when Bethsheba and David’s son Solomon was chosen to build the temple, David prayed what some say is the basis for the end of The Lord’s Prayer.
Praise be to you, Lord,
the God of our father Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all. 1 Chronicles 29:10&11
When we aren’t in control, fix a situation, and don’t understand what is going on we normally pray. But, after we pray a while, and don’t see answers we should follow the paths of David and Christ. Their responses to unanswered prayers are genuine worship and self-denial. It’s not wrong to go to God with requests that seemingly may not be His will. When God answers in a way we don’t like and we worship Him despite our pain, our offerings to Him are even more special.
“He took Peter, James and John along with Him, and He began to be deeply distressed and troubled”. When facing the cross, Jesus chose to pray with His best friends. Though He was an active part of the Trinity, He also shared His pain with human disciples.
During COVID quarantine we isolated and cocooned.When we go through difficult times, the temptation is to again, isolate and cocoon. The habit of withdrawal is a temptation even when the healthier choice would be to share. When we are asked “How are you?” It isn’t easy to admit that we aren’t fine. When we admit that we are not fine, God can work during honest conversations with people we trust. God can provide answers through helpful words of others.
In addition to to the aid of helpful friends, when we pray the Holy Spirit and Christ pray with us. During an especially difficult time of prayer last week, a friend reminded me that Christ prays along side us. It comforted me that I could, like when I pray with partners, just relax and silently agree with Christ’s prayers.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
… Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:26&27, 34-39.
“And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly”. Christ’s anguish gave Him the desire to press into His Father more earnestly. Christ prayed, checked in with His disciples, prayed again, checked in, and prayed some more.
He prays three times for deliverance. Making the same request three times is a biblical literary device to signify completeness. Jesus praying three times means that he prayed until he felt he had resolved the issue with himself and with God. MaryKate Morse
Earnest prayer takes time and effort. Think: the persistent widow: Luke 18:1-8. It takes courage, quiet and time to allow God to communicate to us while we are praying. John 10:1-5, Isaiah 30:19-21, John 16:13-15.
“Abba, Father!” Prayer is not always about results. It’s always about relationship. At Gethsemane, while Peter, James and John fell asleep, Jesus communicated His deepest thoughts and emotions to His Father. It was second nature for Jesus to pray to His Father.
For Christ, prayer is communication, both speaking and listening. Read John 5-8. There are numerous references of communication between Christ and God.
It is obvious that Christ didn’t want to go through death on the cross. His relationship with His Father made it possible for Him to do, in the end, what He didn’t want to do.
“Everything is possible for You.”
Ultimately, we cannot limit God’s power and love for us. While He can do anything, there is a disconnect between our reality and His. It’s possible that at times we’d rather not be disappointed by God’s answers to our prayers OR we may be afraid that God will ignore us or not do what we want. We’d rather not share our suffering with Him. In pain, we are capable of disregarding our loving God’s possibilities. Our need for control, to fix things, and to understand, can negatively influence our prayer life. Though we may not deliberately try to limit God, we limit Him in our own eyes. When we fail to honestly share our deepest needs, we limit our view of what God can do.
When our prayers are not answered, we it is easy to doubt God’s love for us. We may believe that our prayer requests are reasonable and just. We may believe that we KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR US AND we especially know what’s best for OUR LOVED ONES. We might pull away after wondering why God doesn’t make the pain stop.
No matter how hard it is to keep trusting when our deepest, most desperate prayers go unanswered, getting rid of God’s love and God’s power doesn’t actually help. In fact, it makes things much worse. The you try to remove God from the equation of your sufferings, you reduce yourself to a highly evolved animal in a meaningless universe whose suffering is without purpose, consequence, or hope. By holding on to God when things are tough, you retain the possibility of rescue and receive comfort in your distress, a sense of purpose in your pain, and ultimately the hope of a life after death. Pete Greig
Through pain, it is possible to come to a deeper acknowledgement that God knows and loves us and has our best in mind. Isaiah 55:8-13 While everything is possible for God, as our creator, He knows what to best for us. We don’t.
“Take this cup from Me.” Jesus was comfortable praying that He’d like to escape the cross. Christ knew His destiny from the beginning, but as a human, sweat blood in fear of it.
Pete Greig in “How to Pray”, admits, “The Bible is more honest about unanswered prayers than the church. The gospel writers make no attempt to hush up the fact that Jesus himself experienced disappointment in prayer.”
Jesus, like David, who knew what His Father was about. They both asked that they’d be spared. We should find comfort approaching God in our weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:9-11 As we ask for our heart’s desires, we understand more clearly if our heart’s desires spring from God’s desires for us.
“But not My will, but Yours be done.”Jesus is clear with His Father. His Father, in turn is clear with Him. Jesus didn’t want to die, but His Father was for it. Jesus, sweating blood, believed in God’s sovereignty even while He didn’t want to do His Father’s will. Christ was able to continue off the mountain into captivity, and drew the strength to go through His Father’s plan because He knew that it was God’s will. Christ knew His Father had a greater picture.
In retrospect, we understand why Jesus endured the cross, Hebrews 12:1-2. It may not be possible for us to understand our bigger picture now, but we can ask God to supply us with the strength to worship Him and walk beside Him while we still wonder.
When we worship God, not understanding His will, fairness, or lack of connection, we admit God’s lordship in our lives. He becomes dearer: Not only as our Savior, but our Lord, Comforter, Healer, and Peace.
I do not understand what God is doing or even where God is, but I know that he is out to do me good.’ This is trust. This is how to wait. I do not fully understand the reasons for the wildernesses of God’s absence. This I do know; while the wilderness is necessary, it is never meant to be permanent. In God’s time and in God’s way the desert will give way to a land flowing with milk and honey. Richard Foster
Assignment:
When we are disappointed in prayer, praying the Psalms can bring comfort and provide a means of framing our emotions.
One-third of the Bible’s Psalms are considered laments: Psalm 22, Psalm 6, Psalm 109:21-31 and Psalm 42.
These Psalms focus on God’s trustworthyness. Psalm 27: 4-5, Psalm 46, Psalm 91, Psalm 139:1-18. Notice that these Psalms say little about God answering prayers and a lot about His majesty and interest in our welfare. They suggest that we should not fear, but when we do, God is with us. The Psalms also provide comfort that our future is more positive than the present.
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31
References:
Foster, Richard, Prayer Finding the Heart’s True Home, p. 23-24
Greig, Pete, How to Pray, A Simple Guide for Normal People. p. 115,119
Morse, MaryKate, A Guidebook to Prayer, pg. 136
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