16. Understanding Answered Prayer
"When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don't pray, they don't." – William Temple Surprising as it may seem, many Christians do not deeply understand how and under what circumstances our prayers can be answered. The very expression "answered prayer" is based on the assumption that prayer is asking for something. In reality, as we have seen in this book, that is only a small part of what prayer is all about. In that sense, answered prayer is much more than just getting what we ask for. When we understand the full breadth and depth of prayer, the potential riches of our communication with God, worrying about "unanswered prayer" becomes almost meaningless – in the same way we would not be concerned about "unanswered conversation" every time we talked with a friend.
More specifically, every prayer of praise is answered in the sense that its purpose is fulfilled as we glorify God. Every prayer of thanksgiving is fulfilled as we express our gratitude, and every prayer for forgiveness is fulfilled when it is made in true repentance (1 John 1:8-9). We may not think about it, but God "answers" all these prayers in terms of what they accomplish in unseen ways in our lives.
It is only in our prayers of petition and intercession – where we ask specific things for ourselves or others – that the idea of "unanswered prayer" becomes an issue in our minds, so we will look at that potential problem in this chapter.
Can We Change God's Mind? First of all, we must look at a concept that sometimes short circuits even the best-intentioned Christian. Sometimes our prayers are not answered because we simply do not ask with conviction. We may feel sure that God can and does answer prayers, but we may not feel confident that he will intervene in our circumstance because we feel he has already allowed something bad to happen, and that he will not change his mind in that regard. This feeling can even be based on a misunderstanding of certain scriptures.
For example, in 1 Samuel we find that God "… does not … change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind" (1 Samuel 15:29 and see Malachi 3:6, etc.). Correctly understood, verses like this are among the most encouraging verses in the Bible. God's love, forgiveness, patience, mercy, and other qualities are just not going to change. We can find great relief in that fact. Once he has accepted us, God will work with us tomorrow just as he did yesterday and does today.
But incorrectly understood, verses like this can limit us. We can discourage ourselves by thinking that God will never change his mind once he has determined something – so our prayers otherwise are probably futile and useless.
This is especially true in areas where it looks as though God has allowed something to happen to us or to others that does not change for the better despite our prayers. In situations like this, is it possible to change God's mind? And if God is all knowing and has perfect wisdom, why should we consider even trying to ask God to change a decision he has made?
Many situations recorded in the Bible show that actually God is willing to change his mind, so we will look at only one example in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament.
The first example that comes to mind is the one we saw in the chapter on Abraham – the Genesis account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24-25). In that chapter we saw that although God did destroy those cities and had clearly decided to do so (Genesis 18:17-32), he nevertheless relented in at least sparing Lot and his family as a result of Abraham's persistent intercession (Genesis 19:22-32).
The second example – the New Testament account of the Canaanite woman who pleaded with Christ to heal her daughter (Matthew 15:21-28, Mark 7:24-30) – makes our point even more directly. Jesus made it clear to the woman that he was not sent to the Gentiles and that he would not answer her pleas. Yet when the woman persisted, he relented and essentially made an exception to the rule he himself had explained regarding the fact that he was not sent to help the Gentiles at that time.
These examples point up something we should always remember. The fact that God is all-knowing and all-wise doesn't mean a decision he makes is the only wise decision possible in a given circumstance. The truth is, by virtue of the fact that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, he can look at a situation and adjust things to make another outcome work just as well if he knows it will still be for the best.
God obviously has the power to do exactly that kind of changing, and asking God to change his mind by considering other outcomes is not disrespectful as long as we are willing to accept his answer - it just means we have a healthy understanding of how all-knowing and all-powerful God is. Prayer does not ever change the overall intent and purposes of God, but prayer can sometimes change God's plans – the details of how he fulfills his purposes.
When Prayer Seems To Be Unanswered Yet every Christian experiences both answered and what seems to be "unanswered" prayer regarding specific requests. It's easy to appreciate the former and then to move on, but unanswered prayer sometimes becomes a discouragement for us: the illness that persists, the job opening that doesn't come, the ongoing difficulties we all face and may, in many cases, have prayed about fervently. We see this situation in the apostle Paul's admission regarding a problem he prayed about unsuccessfully: "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me" (2 Corinthians 12:8). Apparently Paul's prayers were unanswered in this case. The Bible often states that the prayers of the unrighteous go unheard (John 9:31); but this was clearly not the situation in Paul's case, any more than it is for others who are sincerely trying to walk according to God's will.
So why do some of our prayers seem to go unheard? Only God knows the answer to this question for specific cases, but the Bible gives us a number of reasons why prayers may not be answered, and we will look closely at those in the next chapter. But sometimes the problem is not with unrighteousness or some other negative reason.
There is also another situation which applies to Christians in cases of what seems to be unanswered prayer, and it is one that we must understand. Like sincere children, sometimes we just don't understand what to ask for and may well be asking for something that is not going to be given in the way we ask. Put simply, God gives us what we would ask for if we knew everything he knows. God knows our need before we ask it (Matthew 6:8), and Paul says "We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit itself intercedes for us…" (Romans 8:26).
But that doesn't mean God will answer us according to our request if we are asking for the wrong solution to the problem. As a result, we may not realize it when God works out the situation in a different manner from what we ask. No matter how sincere we may be, if we try to tell God how to do his job, we may find that's the one way it won't happen! We must always resist the temptation to try to tell God how to solve our problem or supply our need. Prayer is not, as C. S. Lewis reminded us, "advice offered to God."
This is also true in the matter of timing. When we pray urgently for help that doesn't arrive just when we think we need it, it's easy enough to feel that the prayer was unanswered, but that's not necessarily the case at all. We have to remind ourselves that we pray on our schedules and God answers on his. He doubtless knows when it will be best to answer our requests, so a delay doesn't mean our prayers will never be answered.
Open-Ended Asking There is a great biblical example of asking in a way that doesn't stipulate what or when we think help needs to be given. In 2 Chronicles 20, Jehoshaphat – one of ancient Israel's few good kings – was told that a vast enemy army was heading toward Jerusalem.
Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah … Then Jehoshaphat stood up in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem at the temple of the LORD and said: "Lord, the God of our ancestors, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations … here are men from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir … coming to drive us out of the possession you gave us as an inheritance. Our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you" (2 Chronicles 20:3-12). Notice that Jehoshaphat didn't ask for angelic armies to come to Israel's aid; he didn't ask for plagues or whirlwinds to strike the enemy or any of the many ways we might imagine God could take care of the situation; and he didn't even ask for help now! His prayer ended with a simple "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you." "What kind of a prayer is that?" you might ask. Jehoshaphat just mentions the situation and doesn't even seem to ask for any specific help. Indeed, he does not. Yet God hears more than we say and answers more than we ask – and Jehoshaphat's prayer was answered. We are told that "The Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated" (2 Chronicles 20:22).
Think about this. If Jehoshaphat had earnestly asked God for firestorms or floods or whatever to be unleashed upon his enemy, he might well have thought his prayer was unanswered. In this case his prayer obviously was answered, and quickly, but the point is that Jehoshaphat simply showed his faith and asked God's help, leaving the details up to God. When we remember that God will always answer our prayers as he knows best, we come to realize that we actually have far fewer unanswered prayers than we often think. That is why we find such clear and unequivocal promises regarding answered prayer in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, just as Christ himself told his disciples:
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7-11).