unanswered prayer – our perspective. can we understand? “of all the activities in which the...

Unanswered Prayer – Our Perspective

Can We Understand?

“Of all the activities in which the Christian engages and which are part of Christian life, there is surely none which causes so much perplexity and raises so many problems as the activity we call prayer.”

Dr D Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Our Elements in Unanswered Prayer

• Our will• Our prayers• Our response• Our comfort

The Patient JobBy Gerard Seghers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Seghersjob.jpg

Our Will

• We pray for health, happy home, healthy children, sufficient money, satisfying employment, relationship with the Lord

• Then – terror, caught in a situation, heading somewhere you never asked to go

And we are powerless!

Our Will

The terror can be• Sudden

trauma/illness• Loss of a loved one• Long-term illness• Death of a dream

Everyone experiences this to one degree or another during life

Our WillOur ‘will’, our ‘self’, is

challenged by the question – why-y-y-y-y?

Not a neat academic or theological exercise. Touches the deepest and most painful experiences of life! A crushing spiritual, emotional and physical pressure.

Life was not supposed to be like this – was it!

Gethsemane

Our Will

What was the world supposed to be like?

Since the fall, we have coped with

o Free willo Cause-effecto Natural lawso DNA

Our Prayers

“It is not possible for us to say, I will pray, or I will not pray, as if it were a question of pleasing ourselves. Prayer is a necessity as breathing is necessary to life”.

Karl Barth 1964

Our Prayers

After all, didn’t our Lord say

‘Ask (in my name) and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete’ (Jn 16:24)

Our Prayers

But we have a problem!‘Prayer’ is not working?‘Heaven’ is silent?• Loved one remains ill• Pain persists/worse• Relationships

poor/worse• Cancer not healed/worse• Bankruptcy/let down• Stepped out of boat and

promptly sank/let down

Our Prayers

• To the Non-Christian – it can just confirm that there is no God.

• To the Christian who knows our Lord is there – an intense emotional process.

o Messyo Struggle with faitho Emotional pain/anxietyo Weeping/wailingo Anger/easily triggeredo Even, loss of faith

Our Prayers

What is the alternative?

‘We stand on the shore of an ocean, crying to the night and to emptiness; sometimes a voice answers out of the darkness. But it is the voice of one drowning; and in a moment, silence returns. The world seems to me quite dreadful; the unhappiness of most people is very great’.

Bertrand Russell Atheist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bertrand_Russell_1950.jpg

Our PrayersNo -Our Lord is all we have during

the crisis! ‘Simon Peter answered him,

"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”.’

Jn 6:68

Can we remember his love as we weep, thrash about, gnash our teeth and shout at him in anger and frustration?

Do we experience His love from His people at our time of need?

Our Prayers

Faith in our Lord Jesus will not take away the darkness of loss

But faith re-assures us• We are not alone• Value/meaning of our

life in Jesus is not destroyed by darkness

• We are not separated from the love of God

Our Prayers

‘Satan’s cause is never in more danger than when a human – no longer desiring but still intending to do (God’s) will – looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys’Screwtape Letters

C S Lewis

How Can I Get Through This?

• By learning to lament?• By being open/honest

with ourselves/others?• By being discontented?• By handling it badly?• But by being honest

with God?The Patient JobBy Gerard Seghers

The ScreamBy Edvard Munch



with ourselves/others?• By being discontented?• By handling it badly?• By being honest with

God?The Patient JobBy Gerard Seghers


By Learning to Lament

• 50% of Psalms are laments to God with suffering and doubt common themes

• Ecclesiastes talks of the disappointment and futility of life

• Job tackles the topic of “Why do the righteous suffer”?


‘How long O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever’? (Ps 89:46)

‘Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen and Amen’ (Ps 89:52)


• Lament Psalms permit us to shake a fist at God one minute then break into doxology the next

• Can express a faith that accepts hardship and joy and lifts both to the Father


To lament is to vent emotion

AndTo stand naked

before God without shame or pretence

This requires relationship!


To pray under these circumstances ‘is to confess not the abundance but the exhaustion of one’s verbal, intellectual, and spiritual resources. It is surrender……..’

Alan E Lewis


• By learning to lament?

• By being open/honest with ourselves/others?

• By being discontented?

• By handling it badly?• But by being honest

with God?



How can we be open/honest with ourselves/others?

Jesus was honest about his fear

‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised’

(Lk 9:22)

How can we be open/honest with ourselves/others?

But, he still asked for his suffering to be taken away

Why, if he knew his Father’s purpose?

We can assume therefore it is OK to grieve, plead and weep

And still wonder why?




• By being discontented?

• By handling it badly?• But by being honest

with God?



Can We be Discontented?

• Psalms bristle with discontented prayer to the point of briskness, anger and tetchiness

• ‘How long O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long’?

(Ps 13:1-2)


Jesus appeared to beo ‘If it is possible to

take this cup away’(Mat

26:39)o ‘I thirst’

(Jn 19:28)o ‘Why have you

forsaken me’?(Mk 15:34)


• It appears so!• Prayer permits us to

express our feelings to the Lord however strong

• Prayer also permits us to express hope and trust – and try to find God’s perspective!


• Joseph Scriven• 1820 -1886• Banbridge Co

Down• Plymouth Brethern• Port Hope, Ontario

Joseph Medlicott Scriven


What a friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear!What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayerO what peace we often

forfeit,O what needless pain we

bear,All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer.



Have we trials and temptations?Is there trouble anywhere?We should never be

discouraged:Take it to the Lord in prayer!Can we find a friend so faithful,Who will all our sorrows share?Jesus knows our every

weaknessTake it to the Lord in prayer!

Joseph Scriven 1855





• By being disgruntled?• By handling it badly?• But by being honest

with God?



Can we Really Handle it Badly?

Lets look at Peter, • the great Apostle of the

Church• who is seen in church

and cathedral windows • has squares named

after him • wrote parts of scripture• walked on water• first to see Jesus as our

Saviour and Lord


This same Peter• Sleeps when Jesus

needs his company most

• Cuts a man’s ear off • Gets scared and

denounces Jesus X3 • Is absent at crucifixion• Doesn’t believe Mary

MagdaleneSt Peter denies Christ Gustav Dore


Why should we be any different from Peter?

So, we can struggle, let Him down and fail during our Gethsemane’s – as long as we repent and stay close like Peter.

‘Lord to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life’! (Jn 6:67-69)

St Mary’s ChurchBury St Edmonds



with ourselves/others?• By being disgruntled?• By handling it badly?• By being honest with

God?The Patient JobBy Gerard Seghers


Can we be honest with God?

• By admitting we don’t have it all together – broken even!

• By expressing deep emotion, questions, prayers, doubts, fears!

• History is ‘lubricated with tears’ to the Lord

Can we be honest with God?We find with experience of sadness,

despair and loss

That –

It is OK to tell God how you feel – like Job, Jeremiah, David and even Jesus

Through excruciating circumstances of unanswered prayer, our hurts can be used for the care of others.

‘the God of all comfort….comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves received from God’

(Cor 1:3-4)

Our Comfort:His Word

• ‘God will quiet you with his love – rejoice over you with singing’ (Zeph 3:17)

• ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you’ (Isa 43:1-2)

• ‘See, I have inscribed you in the palms of my hands’

(Isa 49:16)• ‘You hem me in – behind and

before – where can I flee from your presence’ (Ps 139:5,7)

Our Comfort:His Word

• ‘We know that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord’ (Rom 8:28)

• ‘For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:38-39)

• ‘I will never leave you or forsake you’ (Heb 13:5)

Our Comfort:Our Saviour

We have a Saviour whoo Suffered in

Gethsemaneo Appealed to Godo Agonised on the cross

All for our sake


Isaiah 53 1 Who has believed our message and to

whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.


Soo He knows what distress is and

understands ours‘We have a High Priest who is able

to sympathise with our weakness’ (Heb 4:15)

o He knows what physical and emotional agony feels like and understands ours

‘..a High Priest who in every respect has been tested…’

(Heb 4: 15)


His reactiono He transforms us into his

own by our confession‘You are a letter of Christ,

written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God’

( 2 Cor 3: 3)o He draws us into his

presence as we approach the throne of grace

‘Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need’

(Heb 4:16)

Our Comfort:The Holy Spirit

We don’t even have to verbalise how we feel.

As we hold onto the cross for dear-life, the Holy Spirit speaks for us when we are broken and lost for words.

‘The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express’.

(Rom 8:26)

A Prayer in Extremis

Abba Father, I know about your love in my head but my heart is tired. Please help me to reduce my anger. Help me to see your tears for me, softening my heart. I don’t understand why you don’t answer my prayers but I trust you have heard me, that you care and that you are somewhere on my case. Abba Father, thank you for all your blessings – I just don’t know what I would do, where I would be, or who I would have become without you. Help me to trust you today.

In Conclusion

• Life can be tough since we live in a fallen world. Faith does not take darkness away

• Our prayers may not be answered the way we ask or would like

• Jesus loves his people and died to remove the ‘falleness’ and fear from us

• The Lord and His people support and comfort us even as we weep, and look forward to rejoicing with us when we can celebrate again

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