Why do prayers sometimes go unanswered?
Jesus’ disciples knew Him as a person of prayer. In the gospel of Matthew, we see Jesus trying to get alone to pray. It wasn’t easy for Him to squeeze in that time when crowds were seeking Him out and His disciples wanted to talk about the meaning of what He said or did each day. But Jesus needed to be with God in prayer — to communicate, to listen, to discern and to be guided.
His disciples knew prayer was a source of strength and wisdom for Jesus. So, it’s not surprising that Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray, too. He modelled prayer for them and gave them a model of prayer that has come to be known as The Lord’s Prayer. We pray it in corporate worship whenever we gather as disciples of Jesus.
We learn early in our faith life to pray The Lord’s Prayer as a way of orienting ourselves to God and placing our trust in the One Jesus called Father. Yet I find there to be a certain irony in praying this prayer because it incorporates the dilemma of unanswered prayer within it.
“Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil” is a petition with which we see Jesus struggling in the Garden of Gethsemane. Knowing His betrayal and arrest were at hand, Jesus prays, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.” He was asking to be spared the time of trial and to be delivered from the evil He was about to face.
One might argue that He was delivered from evil in that He was not overcome by it and that His resurrection was a triumph of God’s goodness over the power of death. Even if that is so, He was not spared a time of trial and testing through the betrayal of Judas, the denial of Peter, the fleeing of His disciples, the torture of His captors, the false witness of His trial and the cruelty of His crucifixion.
Jesus taught us a prayer of faithfulness even as He knew that not all prayers are answered — or at least not in the way we want them to be. Perhaps that is why Jesus adds “yet, not my will but yours be done” to His petition in the Garden. He knew that what He wanted might not align with what God was seeking to do through Him.
In the honesty and transparency of His prayer, Jesus was clear about His desire to be spared a time of trial and suffering. He made His petition known to God. Yet, He also acknowledged that His personal will yielded to God’s redemptive will.
Most of us are not faced with Garden of Gethsemane moments, but we do know what it’s like to pray for something we do not receive. For example, when I moved to Saskatchewan in 2002 to begin as chaplain for Luther College at the University of Regina, my youngest child was still in high school.
I had prayed mightily that God would make it possible for her to join me. I believed it to be in her best interest and certainly in mine, because moving away was very difficult. I was counting on God’s will aligning with mine because I believed the call I was accepting was God’s will.
And maybe God did think that it would be best if she came with me. But she didn’t! She wanted to finish high school where she had started it and to run for student council there. I could not and would not force her to come, and God does not force any of us. We are invited but not forced.
When my initial prayer was unanswered, my petition changed. I asked God to help me develop a good long-distance parental relationship with her. And that petition was answered. It turns out that daily 30-minute phone calls with a teenager go a long way in keeping a relationship open, honest and loving!
Unanswered prayer often helps us go deeper in determining what we really need or want. Sometimes it changes us. Sometimes it helps us see things from another person’s perspective or from God’s wider and deeper understanding. Sometimes we realize unanswered prayers are guideposts pointing in another direction.
Sometimes we realize God (or another person) is saying “no.” Sometimes they remain a mystery or an ache for which we need God’s wisdom or comfort.
I pray that whenever you face unanswered prayer, you find the strength to go deeper into that dilemma and find within it God’s always-present love upholding you.
Rev. Canon Cheryl Toth is a retired priest in the Diocese of Qu’Appelle and Honorary Assistant at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Regina.