Believing, Doubting, and Receiving

I was often told that if I wanted God to answer my prayers, I had to believe, without any doubt, that he would answer my prayers. I found this very troubling. How could I not have doubts? There were already many prayers that had gone unanswered! How then could I not doubt that this latest prayer might also go unanswered? This teaching even threatened the little bit of faith that I did have, but this seemed to be James’ message:

• If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does (James 1:5-8).

I liked the first verse. It promised that God would generously give me wisdom without censuring me for asking, and I certainly needed wisdom. However, it seemed that the following verses reversed this promise. I wouldn’t receive anything from the Lord because I struggled with doubt, and this made me “double-minded” and “unstable.”

I knew I couldn’t reach His standards, and so His promise of wisdom was useless to me. Even worse, my doubts suggested that I might not even be one of His children!

However, I began to see that many of God’s servants doubted, and God didn’t abandon them to their doubts. John the Baptist had doubted. Even though he had testified that he had seen the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus and referred to Jesus as the “Lamb who takes away the sins of the world,” he too doubted after he was thrown into prison. He therefore sent his disciples to Jesus to determine if He was really the Messiah.

Instead of sending John’s disciples back saying, “Just tell John to quit doubting,” He addressed his doubts with evidence:

• "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Matthew 11:4-5). 

In fact, Jesus always seemed ready to provide evidence to support the often-failing faith of His disciples. After His crucifixion, they were on a doubt-saturated retreat. However, He penetrated their locked safe-house to encourage them in the midst of their disbelief:

• "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have" (Luke 24:38-39).

They doubted, yet they received! This relieved me, but it left me with another problem – How do I understand James? Perhaps there were different kinds of doubting, and perhaps James had a more serious form of doubting in mind.

James equated doubting with being “double-minded.” Perhaps he had the hypocritical, unrepentant sinner in mind, not the person struggling with honest doubts, like Jesus’ disciples.

I found that the Greek word for “double-minded” was used only one other time in Scripture, and that was in the fourth chapter of James:

• Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up (James 4:8-10).

These verses revealed several things about this double-minded man. He was a “sinner” who had to repent, to “Grieve, mourn and wail.” Evidently, he hadn’t “come near to God.” He prayed and used God-talk, but his heart was far from God. It was no wonder that he would receive nothing from God until he humbled himself to confess his sins and double-mindedness.

It reminded me of when the Lord hosted the Prophet Ezekiel to a tour of the Temple to see the duplicitous secrets of the “seventy elders of the house of Israel”:

• He said to me [Ezekiel], "Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? They say, 'The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land'" (Ezekiel 8:12-13). 

Outwardly, they might have looked pious, but inwardly, they had another life. This reminded me of friends who had also claimed that “the LORD has forsaken the land.” They had explained that they had prayed, but the Lord didn’t answer them. Since He hadn’t come through for them, they conveniently concluded that they would now have to take charge of their own lives, the very thing they wanted to do. They continued to pray, but now their trust was in themselves and not the Lord.

I began to notice that there were many kinds of doubting. Some kinds weren’t even contrary to faith. The Bereans doubted Paul’s message, but this kind of doubting was commended:

• Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true (Acts 17:11).

Doubt has a sanctified role in the life of a Christian

Prophets and teachers could not simply be accepted and believed. They had to be examined/doubted:

• Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1). 

The church at Ephesus had been commended for this:

• I know your deeds…I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false (Revelation 2:2).

It’s not easy being a doubter/tester, but I found that there is definitely a place for me in the Body of Christ. In fact, everything had to be doubted and examined to safeguard the church (1 Thess. 5:21; Deut. 13:1-5; 18:21-22).

I began to see that the “faith teachers” who teach that we have to close down our skeptical, doubting minds in order to receive anything from the Lord, are wrong. God gave us minds and doubts for a reason, to seek out and safeguard the truth.

There are others forms of doubting that are a normal part of growth. Growth is painful. For a tree to grow, it must break through its old barriers and defenses, the smooth bark that had once protected the tree. In the process, it develops tears and stretch marks associated with the rough bark of an older tree. We too have to grow by re-examining and breaking through our old boundaries—our old ways of thinking.

Believing was a stretch for Jesus’ disciples. He would often address them as “Ye of little faith.” They just weren’t getting it. They would try to make the stretch but would fall. On one occasion, they saw Jesus walking on the water towards their boat. In a great display of faith, Peter cried out:

• "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"  Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God" (Matthew 14:28-33).

Peter’s doubt wasn’t the result of a lack of commitment. Instead, he and the rest of the disciples weren’t fully convinced of Jesus’ divine identity. However, after this incident they expressed a deeper understanding: "Truly you are the Son of God."

We too have a deficient understanding of faith. We wrongly regard it as our personal possession and expect it to be fully amenable to our control and manipulations. We think that faith is about an amount, and then we place our faith in the sufficiency of our own faith. We look to ourselves instead of to Christ, our real hope. We become self-centered rather than God-centered. Instead, Jesus encouraged His disciples not to regard the extent of their faith but the object of their faith—God. The smallest measure of faith—a mustard seed’s worth—was enough. However, they would have to grow in their understanding of the One in whom they had invested their faith.

We all have to grow in our understanding of our Lord (2 Pet. 1:2-3; 1 Tim. 4:6; 1 Peter 4:12). There is no escaping this. I had tried to. I prayed that I would be relieved of all of my painful doubts and weakness-of-faith. However, this was not to be. Christ had another purpose for my weakness, my tendency to doubt everything that came my way. He would use this to create His strength (2 Cor. 12:9-10), a confident knowledge of Him. He coerced me, through the torment of doubts, to meditate on His Word day and night in hope of finding answers.

When I wasn’t able to find a way to reconcile stubborn verses, it felt as if I was drowning. I had banked everything on Scripture. I had walked out on the ice-covered lake. If it was not able to support the weight of my confused life, I would fall through the ice to my death.

I heard the ice crack all around me, but it never gave way. In retrospect, I realize that it had been underpinned by God Himself.

• Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:3-5).

My faith was a gift from my Savior, and He would safeguard it! We worry too much about the size of our faith and our control over doubts and thoughts, but we can do nothing without Him (John 15:5). Therefore, we have to entrust our growth to Him, as we actively apply His means of growth.

We have faith-impediments that are so deep that only He can uproot them at their foundation. We always try to compensate for our doubts and insecurities with self-trust, the very enemy of Christ-trust. We love to believe in ourselves, and so this bondage must be broken.

Jesus had sent out His disciples. After their return, a father claimed that they had failed to cast out the demon from his son. After Jesus cast it out, His disciples wanted Him to explain the reason for their failure:

• "Why couldn't we drive it out?"  He replied, "This kind can come out only by prayer" (Mark 9:28-29).

What an embarrassing revelation! They had gone out to the mission field without prayer! Why? Evidently, they thought they didn’t really need it! Why not? They were convinced that they had what the job required. Their faith wasn’t truly in Jesus. Instead, they had to learn that, without Him, they were helpless! Their failures and self-doubts were necessary to teach them this lesson.

Other doubts are more serious

They represent a rejection of the faith.

• The LORD said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?” (Numbers 14:11) 

Doubts were often used as justification for unbelief. The Israelites refused to believe and so they resorted to doubting that God could provide:

• But they continued to sin against him [despite His many miracles], rebelling in the desert against the Most High. They willfully put God to the test by demanding the food they craved. They spoke against God, saying, "Can God spread a table in the desert?” (Psalm 78:17-19)

• God's anger rose against them; he put to death the sturdiest among them, cutting down the young men of Israel. In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; in spite of his wonders, they did not believe (Psalm 78:31-32).

However, some reject the faith because of disappointment and can be brought back. Thomas had doubted his brethren’s accounts that they had seen the risen Savior. He refused to believe despite these accounts and Jesus’ many miracles and prophesies about His return. Nevertheless, Jesus appeared to him to give him the proof that he demanded, but He also chastened him:

• Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29). 

However, others remain hardened in their willful doubt and refusal to believe. According to John, when we harden our heart against the faith and willfully disbelieve, we are liars:

• Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22; 5:10).

Why don’t we receive when we pray?

One reason is willful doubt, whether we call it unbelief or just rebellion. James ascribes it to wrong motives reflecting a wrong faith:

• You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God (James 4:2-4).

Unanswered prayer is often a matter of sin and unbelief!  Peter gives us an example of sin that will block our prayers:

• Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers (1 Peter 3:7).

There are many biblical references about how unrepented sin blocks us from receiving anything from God. However, will unwanted and unintentional doubting prevent us from receiving from the Lord? I’ve tried to argue against this. We all experience the temptation to sinfully doubt. Jesus was also tempted in every way that we are, except without sin (Heb. 4:15). Therefore, doubts and temptations, in themselves, aren’t sins. Rather, these particular temptations can be positively harnessed to propel a deeper, more prayerful investigation of the Word as we search for answers. Therefore, the doubt is not the problem but how we respond to it.

However, there are a couple of verses that seem to suggest that we shouldn’t even try to combat these doubts through study, but rather, we should shut down our minds to such doubts if our prayers are to be answered.

Peter wanted to know how Jesus was able to whither a fig tree by merely cursing it. Jesus explained:

• "Have faith in God," Jesus answered. "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins” (Mark 11:22-25).

I think that understanding Jesus’ answer depends on understanding the phrase, “not doubt in his heart.” Jesus charges that we must “have faith in God.” How? By believing His Word and in “what he says will happen.” What would this consist of? Well, if He directed us to curse a fig tree so that it will wither, we should trust Him that “we have received it.” If His Word tells us that He will give wisdom to those who ask, we should take His Word for it and trust that we are receiving it!

However, Jesus adds what seems to be a blank check: “whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” However, how can we believe that we have received unless it is something that God has already promised us? Certainly, I cannot expect Him to give me something that is sinful or something against His will because I simply asked without doubting! Therefore, the “whatever” needs to be qualified. It needs to be according to His will! The Father would never grant, “Lord I pray that Jesus will not be crucified.”

Even Jesus had to conform His prayer to the will of the Father:

• Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup [the crucifixion] be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will" (Matthew 26:39).

Jesus’ “whatever” was not granted. Instead, He confessed that the will of the Father had to trump His own. Therefore, the “whatever” must be subordinated to the will of the Father.

However, there are also other things that limit the “whatever,” but this will have to wait until another installment.

James, the “Prayer of Faith,” Elijah, and Revival

 

There is a “theology of blame” that has hurt many. One woman stated that after her mother had died, a friend told her that if she had prayed with more faith, she wouldn’t have died. The woman was devastated!

Where did this “theology of blame” come from? James is often cited:

• Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. (James 5:14-15)

Through James, the Lord has promised to heal the sick through this “prayer offered in faith.” What happens if he is not healed? Well, God cannot be at fault. This means that the fault lies with us! The culprit is often understood as a lack of faith.

Are we interpreting James correctly? Does he give us a guarantee that, by following this this procedure, every disease will be healed? I don’t think so.

A few verses down, James issues another one of God’s promises:

• My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20)

While it is clear that we have a responsibility to correct those who “wander from the truth,” we do not have the power to save anyone “from death.” This power resides only with the Savior!

Is James mistaken? No! He clearly believes that it is God who saves us “from death”:

• He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created. (James 1:18)

• Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. (James 1:21)

Does he not believe in what Jesus had accomplished for us on the Cross? Of course, he does (James 2:1)! Then how can he claim that we can save the wanderer “from death, and cover a multitude of sins?”

We need to learn to correctly interpret (2 Tim. 2:15). We should not expect that whenever a law or principle is mentioned, every exception must be mentioned along with it.

Let’s take an easy example from the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not kill!” Are there exceptions to this rule within the Hebrew Scriptures? Many! These same Scriptures also authorized capital punishment, self-defense, and even warfare.

Do these exceptions contradict the principle of not killing? No! These are merely refinements, and all laws require refinements or qualifications. Any lawyer who wants to do a thorough job will not look merely at the law as stated in the Criminal Codebook. He also must examine the many interpretations, exceptions, and applications of the law, and they are not all found in one place.

This also holds true for anyone who wants to rightly interpret Scripture (or any book). To do this, it is not enough to merely examine the one verse in question. Instead, all of the verses touching on the subject in question must be examined. It starts with the immediate context and then to the context and purpose of the book itself. However, even this doesn’t exhaust the task of interpretation. The entirety of the Bible is relevant.

When we understand this, we also understand that we cannot conclude from these two final verses in the Book of James that we have the power of salvation. Instead, James is telling us that our responsibility is one important element in salvation – proclaiming the truth - and not the entire story.

Now to apply this understanding to the “prayer of faith” for the sick (James 5:15)! While prayer alone can heal no one, prayer is one important element in the healing chain. However, there are also other agents involved in this chain. Of course, the chief Link is God, and we have to believe that He is able to heal. However, in the same context, James mentions another critical aspect of healing – the confession of sins.

• Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)

The elders can pray with all the fervency in the world, but if there is a refusal to confess sins, healing might not take place. We also have to confess our sins to “each other.”

There are also other conditions that are not contained in this immediate context. According to James, the sick could not be a friend of the world. This would make them an enemy of God (James 4:4). They would also have to be humble, because the proud will be abased and not healed (James 4:6). They would have to come near to God so that God would healingly come near to them (James 4:8).

Most importantly, healing depends on the will of God, and no amount of faith, positive assertions, or faith confessions can impact this:

• Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16)

Our words and prayers have to conform to the will of God. Claiming otherwise is arrogance and self-deception. Instead, our lives carry no more authority or power than the “mist.” Therefore, we must acknowledge God’s power and authority: "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." To go beyond what God has explicitly promised is to boast, and this is evil!

Meanwhile, faith preachers teach that we have the same authority as God. In order to prove this unbiblical claim, they invoke a verse that only applies to God:

• As it is written: "I have made you [Abraham] a father of many nations." He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed-- the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. (Romans 4:17)

God can call things into existence. However, this verse does not say that we have this ability, as the faith preacher claims. Instead, we are a mist. We can do nothing without Him (John 15:5) and to claim otherwise is nothing short of evil boasting.

Now let’s apply this to the “prayer of faith.” Do we have the authority to claim that a sick man will be healed? No! It might be the will of God to take him now (Psalm 139). Instead, James cautions us to say, “If it is the Lord’s will” instead of, “This man will be healed.”

Besides, it is even illogical to claim that a certain man will be healed. After all, we all die, and this might be our time. Why then does James claim that “the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well?” If we are to understand this promise in the context of the rest of the book, we understand the promise this way: “the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well if it is the Lord’s will!”

But doesn’t James also say “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective,” (James 5:16)? James then uses Elijah as an example of this:

• Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. (James 5:17) 

From this, the faith preacher teaches that God’s answer depends upon the fervency and forcefulness of our praying. If we are fervent or earnest, our prayers will be answered; if not, our prayers will not be answered.

But from where did Elijah’s fervency come? From the will of God as directly expressed to him through the Word of God:

• Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word." (1 Kings 17:1) 

This boldness and confidence did not come from the will of Elijah but the will of God. God had revealed it to Elijah, who was merely communicating the Word of God.

From the account, we find that the Lord was directing Elijah throughout. According to the Lord’s will and timing, He sent Elijah back to King Ahab:

• After a long time, in the third year, the word of the LORD came to Elijah: "Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land." So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria. (1 Kings 18:1-2)

The Lord now had the attention of Israel. Elijah challenged the priests of Baal to call upon Baal to consume with fire an offering, if he could:

• “Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire--he is God… Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire." So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made. At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention. (1 Kings 18:24-29)

Yet when Elijah prayed, the bull was immediately incinerated. Why was Elijah bold? He knew that he was operating according to the will and Word of his God and not his own:

• At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: "O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. (1 Kings 18:36)

His confidence did not stem from his faith in prayer or faith in his own faith but rather a faith in the God whom he served. He knew God’s Word, and that was what he banked on. He did not accomplish the destruction of the priests of Baal through a formless “prayer of faith” but through a belief in the very words and will of God.

Consequently, when I pray that He will make me more Christ-like or that He will build His church, I pray with confidence, because this is what He promised to do. However, when I pray for a healing, I am confident that He is able, but I am not confident that He will heal in this particular circumstance.

Elijah too was only confident when he had a clear command from his God. Ironically, following this great victory, he fled in fear from Jezebel.

Please don’t think that I wish to minimize prayer. Instead, I want to restore it to its proper glory alongside the will of God. In 1976, the Christian historian, J. Edwin Orr, preached about the importance of prayer:

Dr A. T. Pierson once said, ‘There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer.’ Let me recount what God has done through concerted, united, sustained prayer.

Not many people realize that in the wake of the American Revolution there was a moral slump. Drunkenness became epidemic. Out of a population of five million, 300,000 were confirmed drunkards; they were burying fifteen thousand of them each year. Profanity was of the most shocking kind. For the first time in the history of the American settlement, women were afraid to go out at night for fear of assault. Bank robberies were a daily occurrence.

What about the churches? The Methodists were losing more members than they were gaining. The Baptists said that they had their most wintry season. The Presbyterians in general assembly deplored the nation’s ungodliness. In a typical Congregational church, the Rev. Samuel Shepherd of Lennos, Massachusetts, in sixteen years had not taken one young person into fellowship. The Lutherans were so languishing that they discussed uniting with Episcopalians who were even worse off. The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New York, Bishop Samuel Provost, quit functioning; he had confirmed no one for so long that he decided he was out of work, so he took up other employment.

The Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall, wrote to the Bishop of Virginia, James Madison, that the Church ‘was too far gone ever to be redeemed.’ Voltaire averred and Tom Paine echoed, ‘Christianity will be forgotten in thirty years.

Take the liberal arts colleges at that time. A poll taken at Harvard had discovered not one believer in the whole student body. They took a poll at Princeton, a much more evangelical place, where they discovered only two believers in the student body, and only five that did not belong to the filthy speech movement of that day. Students rioted. They held a mock communion at Williams College, and they put on antiChristian plays at Dartmouth. They burned down the Nassau Hall at Princeton. They forced the resignation of the president of Harvard. They took a Bible out of a local Presbyterian church in New Jersey, and they burnt it in a public bonfire. Christians were so few on campus in the 1790’s that they met in secret, like a communist cell, and kept their minutes in code so that no one would know.

How did the situation change? It came through a concert of prayer. 

What came? The Second Great Revival that transformed this nation! Orr concluded that these prayers were only effectual because they were consistent with the will and providence of God. Let us pray accordingly!

Prayers: What does it Mean when they Go Unanswered

 

We tend to equate unanswered prayer with failure and fault. Years ago, my wife had been told that her mother died because she hadn’t prayed with enough faith.

We are surrounded with apostles of blame. The popular mystic, Richard Foster, also lays the blame on us, when our prayers aren’t answered:

• Often we assume we are in contact [with God] when we are not…Often people will pray and pray with all the faith in the world, but nothing happens. Naturally, they are not contacting the channel. We begin praying for others by first centering down and listening to the quiet thunder of the Lord of hosts. Attuning ourselves to divine breathings is spiritual work, but without it our praying is vain repetition. Listening to the Lord is the first thing…(Celebration of Disciple, 34)

For Foster and the mystics, unanswered prayer (UP) is the result of failing to use the prescribed mystical techniques. However, the Bible often associates UP with wrong motives:

• You ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:2-3)

Other sins will also block us from receiving God’s mercy. However, “contacting the channel” is not a matter of clever techniques but of confession:

• He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)

However, often times we do not receive because what we ask for is not according to God’s plan for our lives – His will:

• I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him. (1 John 5:13-15)

Sometimes His will might be a matter of the last thing we’d suspect – death. Jesus informed the faithful church of Smyrna that martyrdom was what God had willed for “some”:

• “I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander[a] of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (Rev.2:9-10)

Our Lord had informed Peter that he would glorify God in this manner, and no amount of prayer would make a difference:

• “When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) (John 21:8-9)

This might sound strange, but, from our present perspective, I am glad that Peter and the Apostles had suffered martyrdom. Martyrdom would serve, better than anything else, to prove that they really believed what they had preached – that Jesus died for our sins and rose again.

Paul wrote that this would also be the way that we too would have to glorify the Lord:

• All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. (2 Tim. 3:12)

This is God’s will, and it won’t be changed by prayer. Nor would He answer Paul’s prayer to remove his “thorn in the flesh.” Instead, God had revealed to him that this affliction was necessary to keep Paul humble. We want strength, but God gives us weakness through which to bless us, according to His will (2 Cor. 12:7-10). Prayer will not remove all of our afflictions!

Sometimes, God expects us to wait, even for many years, for our prayers to be answered (Psalm 27:14). Abraham had to wait 25 years to receive the promised son, Isaac. Moses had to wait 40 years for God to recall him to Egypt to fulfill the calling that He had originally put in Moses’ heart – a calling of which Moses had long since despaired. God has His own timing.

Sometimes our prayers are answered, but God strangely refuses to reveal this to us. Abraham had intervened with Yahweh on behalf of Lot and his family, then residing in wicked Sodom. He finally got Yahweh to agree to spare Sodom if there were only 10 righteous people in the city. A done-deal, right? Wrong:

• And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord.  And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace. So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. (Gen. 19:27-29) 

God had answered Abraham’s prayer, but Scripture gives us no evidence that He had ever made Abraham aware of this fact. Instead, Abraham packed up his tent, left the area, and fell into sin once again in his new country of residence (Gen. 20), perhaps discouraged by his apparent UP. I wonder how many of our own UPs have been mercifully answered without our knowing it.

We have to walk by faith and not by sight! This is my hope for my two deceased parents. Neither of them had given any indication that God had heard my prayers for their salvation. Yet I continue to hope in the unseen grace of our Savior.

Sometimes, we are afraid of praying for the wrong things. However, if we are walking with the Lord, seeking His will, we need not be afraid. Instead, the Holy Spirit makes up for our deficits:

• 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 with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27) 

As long as we do not willfully and unrepentently continue in sin, we are covered. However, Scripture warns us that sin can close the prayer-channels, for example:

• Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. (1 Peter 3:7)

Unrepented sin will hinder pray. Meanwhile, our Lord is determined to give us the world (Romans 8:17; 31-32; 1 Cor. 21-22), but in His time! He’s already paid the price.