Why Doesn't God Answer Some Of My Prayers

We’re going to conclude our hot potato series this morning. My hot potato to serve to you is: why does God not answer some of my prayers? This was the instruction I got, I believe, by the Spirit yesterday as I was praying for you and for us and this message. And this was my instruction: before we go into why some prayers didn’t get answered, we need to stop and say thank you, and we need to remember the prayers that have been answered, because in the kingdom of God gratitude is very, very valuable. We’re in the kingdom, and we want to live according to the values of the kingdom of God and not the kingdom of the world, even when we have questions.

So I’m just going to ask you to do this for a minute. Literally a minute. Just bow your head, close your eyes, and remember and say thank you.

God, we ask the Holy Spirit to bring back to our remembrance many, many things that you have done. You’ve heard us. You’ve answered our prayers. We’ve seen amazing things turned around in our lives and in the lives of people that we love, because of your goodness, because of your kindness, because of your generosity. And we won’t forget it. Even if today we’re stuck in a moment of something that didn’t happen, and we’re not certain, and we’re unsure, and we’re disappointed, and maybe even angry, we still remember what you have done. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for giving us a way back into right relationship with you. Thank you for healing our broken hearts, opening our blind eyes, setting us free from captivity. Thank you for all that you have done. We thank you for what you’re in the very process of completing at this moment, and we thank you for those future things that we have not even begun to see come to pass. We remain a very grateful, thankful people. We say from all of our hearts, thank you, God.

Can you say thank you, God? Thank you, God.

Just thank you, God, because he is worthy. He is.

Thank you so much, church. You can take your seats. We’re going to dive into this topic. I’m going super fast, you’re going to have to listen super fast. Don’t go to sleep. Get your pen out, take some notes, get ready, buckle up. You ready?

The five-year-old’s question

I read this story about a five-year-old girl, the daughter of a pastor. She noticed that every Sunday morning, when her dad stood behind the pulpit, he closed his eyes and bowed his head for just a minute. He did it every Sunday. So she asked him one Sunday after church, “Dad, what are you doing when you close your eyes and bow your head?” Her dad said, “Well, I’m asking God to help me preach this message really good.” And the five-year-old little girl responded, “Why doesn’t he answer you?”

I feel it. I totally feel it. If you’ve ever stood and spoken, Pastor Shirley knows this, Pastor Marshall knows this, Jordan and David are on their way back in from vacation this week, they know this, if you’ve ever stood on a platform and spoken, the minute you step off you’re like, “Oh, I should have, I shouldn’t have.” You wonder why God didn’t help you. And maybe you haven’t ever done that, but honestly, every single one of us has prayed prayers that have not been answered, or not answered yet.

And I want you to know this: we’re in great company. Because as far as I can tell, reading the Scripture and talking to other believers all over the world, the only person who has ever walked the face of the earth that had every prayer answered was Jesus. He’s the only one. And some people will say, “Well, no, that’s not true, God didn’t answer Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane.” Yes, he did. Jesus’ prayer was, “Not my will, but yours be done.” He yielded his will to God, and God answered that prayer. And because God answered that prayer and accomplished his will, you and I and all of humanity have a pathway back to God. Thank you, God.

But all the rest of us, we pray prayers. A lot of things are answered. Some things are not answered. Some things are still in process.

Prayer is not optional

As we go into this, I want to remind you, this is critical, the reason that we pray is that Jesus taught us to pray. He modeled prayer, and he commanded us to pray. There’s no opt-out on this. This is part of being in the family of God. This is part of being a child of God. This is part of our responsibility. We have a responsibility to pray and ask, and God has a responsibility to answer. And it’s important that we not excuse ourselves.

Jesus is the one who said in Matthew chapter 6, verse 7, and then in verses 9 through 13, you all know these verses, in verse 6 he said, “When you pray,” not if you pray, but when you pray. And then he said, when you pray this way: “Our Father, who art in heaven.” We all know this prayer. It’s not just a prayer to memorize and pray back to God. It is a model. It is a template for us to know how to appropriately enter into the presence of God and begin to ask God. And it begins with acknowledging God, putting God first.

In Luke 18:1, Jesus also told a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not turn coward, faint, lose heart, or give up. I love that he did this. I love that Jesus taught it this way. He said, “I’m going to tell you a story. The purpose of the story is this: I want you to never quit praying. I don’t want you to get distracted. I don’t want you to get too cowardly to pray. I don’t want you to quit, and I don’t want you to faint in your heart over it. I want you to keep praying always.”

In John 14:13, Jesus is in one of the last conversations with his disciples before he’s going to be crucified, buried, and rise from the dead. And he says to the disciples, the followers, “When I am gone, you are going to do greater works than I have done.” And then in verse 13 he says, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified.” Prayer is essential. It’s absolutely essential.

Hebrews 4:16, the writer of Hebrews tells us this:

Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace, the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners, that we may receive mercy for our failures, and find grace to help in good time for every need.

Appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it. How do we receive the help we need? We approach God boldly and confidently in who he is, and we ask him to help us.

And this one’s not on the screen, but Psalm 65:2 in the NIV reads this way: “You who answer prayer, to you all people will come.” To you who answer prayer, think about God in that way. Even as you and I have questions about prayers that have not been answered, we have questions about things that happen in our world, we think about God in this way: to you who answers prayer, we’re coming. We’re coming to you for help. We’re coming to you for answers. We’re coming to you for understanding. We’re coming to you. We will not quit coming.

It’s vitally important that we understand this, because we have an invitation and we have a directive to come and keep coming.

I’ve got four points. The second point is the lengthiest one; the other three are quite fast. But we need to come with a certain posture when we come to God with questions.

Come looking for a solution, not someone to blame

In the current culture, the state of the world that you and I are living in, this is the approach that almost everyone in the world is taking. When we have a question, when we see something not right, when we see something not happening, we come looking for who to blame. That’s all the world cares about: who can we blame? Who can I blame for this? Whose fault is this? It is the total bent of the mindset of the world. And if you and I want to be able to come to God honestly and receive answers, we cannot come with that bent. We have to come different. And guess what, we are different.

When the world says you’re different, they don’t mean that as a compliment. But when God says to us kids of his, “You’re different,” he’s like, “I’m proud of you. You’re different.”

So we’re not coming looking for who we can blame, who we can find fault with, and then just continue to complain bitterly about everything that’s going on. That’s the way of the world. We’re in this world, but we are not of this world, and that is not the way of the kingdom. The way of the kingdom is: come to God, get his help. Ask for and receive his help. And then he will give us solutions.

Blame changes nothing. Have you noticed it doesn’t change a thing? But a solution, let’s identify the problem, let’s figure out, I don’t even care who did what to who, let’s just make it right. Let’s correct it. Let’s get it better. Let’s find a solution and move toward the solution. Are we together?

And we’re for sure not going to be pointing the blame at somebody else’s pain. In this room, and in the place of other people’s rooms that are watching online and that will see this later, there is tremendous pain. Tremendous pain, disappointment, even anger, directed toward God, because things we’ve prayed about and asked God about, we haven’t seen answered yet. But we’re going to get some help this morning to understand what’s going on, and we’re going to move forward. We’re not going to stay stuck here. Agreed?

I’m telling you, there is a strong flow of compassion from God to all of us this morning. If we can open up our tight fist, our closed mind, and our hard heart, we can get some help from God. The best kind ever.

Background: the book of James

We’re going to start in the book of James, toward the back of your New Testament, right before or after the book of Hebrews. James was the half-brother of Jesus. They shared the same mother; they had different fathers. And James did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, while he was walking on the earth. You can get that, you’d have a hard time believing your older brother was the Messiah too. But after Jesus rose from the dead, 1 Corinthians chapter 15 tells us that Jesus appeared to the apostles, and he appeared to 500 people gathered together at once, and he appeared to James. And James came to believe with certainty that Jesus Christ was indeed the Messiah, the Savior of the world. He gave his heart, he gave his life to Jesus, and he became known, his nickname was “Camel Knees,” because he spent so much time on his knees praying, and eventually he became the bishop of the church at Jerusalem. He’s writing his book, the book of James. It’s five chapters. I really encourage you to sit down and read all five chapters, because remember, it’s written as a letter to people, when we read it as it was written, we receive more insight and understanding of the whole message. Of course, we can’t do that this morning.

So we’re going to start with James chapter 1. James is talking about prayer at the beginning of James, at the end of James, and in chapter 4 of James. It’s bookended, and in the middle it’s all about prayer. He’s writing to the first-century church, and they’re asking the same questions we’re asking. And we’re always going to get our answers from the word of God, not from out here somewhere. Agreed?

So we’re going to look at five biblical explanations of why some prayers are not answered. We’re all in this boat together, and we’re going to get some answers.

Reason one: the answer was given, but not received

James 1:5-8:

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without fault-finding, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

So the first reason that some prayers are not answered is: the answer is given, but it isn’t received. James says, listen, if you lack wisdom, if you lack insight for your everyday affairs of life, ask God. The giving God, you see, is the God who hears and answers prayer. God is the giving God, not the withholding God. So if you need wisdom, ask the giving God, and the giving God will pour out his wisdom to you. It’s coming. When you ask, it’s coming. He’s not going to say, “Well, you should have already known that. Why don’t you know that?” He’s not going to find fault with you. He’s not going to upbraid you. He is going to be so happy that you asked, and he’s going to give it.

But James says, when you ask, you must ask with faith, confidence, trust. This is not talking about you needing big, giant faith before you ask. No, you must ask with trust and confidence in the giving God: if I ask, he will hear and he will help me. And he says the answer will come.

But if we ask with doubt and not faith, we’re wavering, and he compares us to a wave of the sea. Waves come in one after another, sometimes they’re wild, they billow up very high, and then it all disappears. And sometimes that’s what happens with our answer, isn’t it? God gives the answer, we have a little bit of understanding, we have a little hold on it, and then here comes a wave of another opinion, another thought, a past experience. So all kinds of waves are coming at us all the time, and here’s an answer that the giving God gave to me, but the wave comes in and washes it right out. I forget it before I can act on it.

Years and years ago, we were doing a conference here and had a pastors’ luncheon. This pastor was speaking, and after he spoke, Marshall and I were having a conversation with him and a few other pastors, and he just very matter-of-factly said, “I have to make a decision about buying property for the church, and I’m not clear yet on what God’s will is. I’ve been praying, but when I get home, I’m going straight to the church, and I am walking and praying through the sanctuary, and then I will sit still and listen, and God will tell me what to do.” He made that statement with such certainty and such confidence. I have never forgotten it. When we come to the giving God and ask for wisdom, for help, you can be confident he is giving it. So put yourself in a place to receive it, to hear it, to get it, to understand it, to hold on to it.

Family, I submit to you that God has answered more of our questions than we have caught the answer to. When it says, “Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord,” it is not that the Lord did not give it, it is that we did not catch it when it came. I want to catch it. How about you? Let’s help one another.

Reason two: we didn’t ask

In James chapter 4, verses 1 and 2:

What leads to strife, discords, and feuds, and how do conflicts, quarrels, and fights originate among you? Do they not arise from your sensual desires that are ever warring in your bodily members? You are jealous and covet what others have, and your desires go unfulfilled, so you become murderers, to hate is to murder as far as your hearts are concerned. You burn with envy and anger, and are not able to obtain the gratification, the contentment, and the happiness that you seek. So you fight and war. You do not have, because you do not ask.

So five biblical explanations for why prayers aren’t answered: sometimes prayers are answered and we didn’t get it, and sometimes prayers are not answered because we didn’t ask. I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that 100 percent of the prayers that you and I do not pray do not get answered. Thinking about praying and thinking prayers are not praying, you have to take words, form them in your mouth, and speak them out of your own mouth to God.

Well, I just don’t see why, if God knows what I need, why do I need to ask him? Because he said to. I don’t know about you, but that’s the kind of household I grew up in with my mom and dad. If dad said to do something, my little sister, she was a lot braver than me, would say, “Well, why do we have to do that?” And you know what dad’s answer was? “Because I said so.” Some of you parents today think that’s not gentle parenting, and it’s not nice and not kind. But Gail and I can tell you, we had the exact same kind of parents, and we are very grateful. Do you know why? Because when dad speaks, we get it. That’s why we do it.

Well, I don’t know why we have to ask, God knows what I have need of. Yes, he does. Jesus said that in Matthew chapter 6: God knows what you have need of, and if you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all the necessities of life that you have need of will be added to you. And then he said the one who asks and keeps on asking will have all the answers come. You have to ask because Jesus said so. If that’s not good enough for you, you can get saved, you can come to Jesus and get born again at the end of this meeting. Because when you’re born of the Spirit of God, and Jesus lives on the inside of you, you want to keep Jesus’s commandments, even if they’re not what you want to do. You understand they’re his commandments. I’m his kid, and I’m going to do what he said I have to do.

So some prayers are not answered, and let’s just be truthful, I’m going to speak truth to you plain and straight this morning. Prayer does not hold the place of prominence in Jesus’s church today that it held in Jesus’s life. It doesn’t. We do free taco night, we run out of tacos. We do prayer night, we’ve got lots of empty seats. I’ll move on. A hundred percent of your unprayed prayers, and my unprayed prayers, go unanswered.

Reason three: wrong motives

James chapter 4:3 says you do ask God for them, and yet you fail to receive, because you ask with wrong purpose and evil, selfish motives. He says that when we pray with wrong motives, we pray amiss, and when we pray amiss, with wrong motives, just to fulfill our own selfishness, those prayers are not answered.

Many years ago, Marshall and I spent a little time one summer traveling with a man named Dwayne. He was a general contractor. Jesus had radically changed Dwayne’s life, and he wanted to tell as many people as he could about Jesus. He had a tent, and he would travel on weekends and take the tent into small little towns in Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas. Marshall went, and I went with him, on a number of weekends. Marshall would lead worship. Andrew and Jamie Warwick were with us. Sometimes Andrew would speak, sometimes Dwayne would speak. And God did amazing, wonderful signs and wonders for the people who came to those meetings.

We were in a meeting, I think it was in West Texas. When you’re in a tent in the hot summer, all you care about is getting back and taking a shower, because it’s hot. There’s no air, there’s no comfortable seat. Thank you, Jesus, for this room. So we were in West Texas, and Dwayne, or Andrew, I don’t remember which, had spoken that night, and the meeting had ended, and there was a young couple standing with Dwayne at the front of the tent. I was more on the other side, just talking to people as they were leaving, thanking them for coming. And I saw this exchange, the lady kept handing what looked like a set of car keys to Dwayne, and Dwayne kept handing them back, and this went on forever, and finally she just threw the keys at Dwayne and left, got in the truck with the husband or boyfriend, whoever it was, and they left.

So by then most people were gone, and Marshall and I were like, “So what was that?” Dwayne said, “She came to me and said she was believing Luke 6:38, that if you give, it shall be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, men shall give into your bosom. And so she quoted that scripture to me, and she threw the keys at me and argued with me and said, ‘I’m giving you my car, and I want God to give me a yellow Cadillac.’” You can’t make this stuff up. You really can’t, truth is stranger than fiction.

Marshall and I are like, “She gave you her car?” We were driving a Volkswagen van that had to be worked on every time you drove it, it had two gears out of four, and so we’re just drooling. The car, Marshall thinks, was a Grand Torino. It was a beautiful bright orangey-red sports car. And Dwayne’s like, “She’s going to sleep on this overnight. She’s going to wake up in the morning. Her family’s going to convince her she’s crazy, and she’s going to be knocking on the hotel room door before the sun comes up wanting the car back.” And we said, “What are you going to do?” He said, “I’m giving her the car back. God doesn’t work that way.” And that is exactly what happened. That’s a strange, odd, never-seen-it-happen-again story. She was the only person in that whole tent that had that notion that night. That’s asking with wrong motives. You can see it with her, right? But can you see it with you?

Let God check your motives. He’s good, he loves you, he’s not going to upbraid you. But you do not have because you do not ask, or you do not get because you pray with wrong motives.

Reason four: presumption

We have some prayers that are not answered because they are presumptive prayers. We presume things about God. You can ask all you want to, but Jesus said that what we ask him to do has to be in alignment and agreement with his word, with his will, and with his ways. And the only way you and I will ever know that is to be in the word, be in your word.

Clearly the lady in the tent revival knew one scripture; she didn’t know others, and her asking was amiss. But we presume sometimes what God will do. Even Jesus said, “I only do and I only speak what I hear my Father speak and what I see my Father do.” So if we’ll stay in our word and follow Jesus, we won’t presume things.

The 1828 Webster’s dictionary defines presumption this way: blind or headstrong confidence, unreasonable confidence in divine favor. It means to take for granted, assume, or suppose. I can’t assume what the will of God is, I have to know, and I have to pray according to his will. And he’s good to inform us of that. We’re his children, we’re part of his kingdom, and he wants us to be working with him in prayer.

David gives us a great example of this in 1 Samuel chapter 23. When he was king and he had many enemies and many battles to fight, before each battle he would inquire of the Lord: “Is this our battle? If this is our battle, do we go to war now? What is our strategy? What do we do?” And as long as he followed what God revealed and did not presume, he prevailed. There was a time he presumed and went to battle, and they lost badly. You have to know. And to know, you have to get before God and take the time to hear it.

Psalm 19:12-14:

Who can discern his lapses and errors? Clear me from hidden and unconscious faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Then shall I be blameless, and I shall be innocent and clear of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my firm, impenetrable rock and my Redeemer.

Reason five: cherished sin, pride, and unforgiveness

Why five biblical reasons that prayers may not be answered: it’s because we cherish sin. We’re full of pride and unforgiveness. Each one of these that I’m talking to you about, we could talk through for days, and we won’t, I’m just giving you an outline here so you can get before God and get some answers.

Psalm 66:18: “If I regard iniquity in my heart, God will not hear me.”

He’s not talking about just an everyday, occasional sin amiss. He’s talking about things that we know are wrong, we know it’s sin, and we’re going to do it anyway. We hold it tight. We hold tighter to our sin and our pride than we hold tight to God. Make that exchange, hold tighter to God.

Years ago, Pastor Shirley and I had a lady come talk to us. We both knew her very well; she had been part of the church for a number of years. She’s not any longer. She came to see us separately, she came to see me, then she came to Shirley. We compared notes later; she’d said basically the same thing to both of us. She said, “I just want to say goodbye. I just want you to know I won’t be here, because I have chosen to live a different way of life. And I know it’s wrong. I know God does not approve. I know it’s sin, but I’m going to do it.” And I said, “Well, what do you want me to pray?” She couldn’t answer me. I said, “I will pray for you, that your eyes will be opened, that your heart will be softened, that you will come away from that prideful decision you have made, and you will turn your heart back to God.” That prayer has not yet been answered. Her heart is extremely hard, and her pride is extremely big. Can God do it? Yes, he will.

First Peter 5:6-7: God resists the proud. Did you think about that? When you’re all proud of yourself and boasting, “look at me, give me,” pride. If your prayer sounds like, “God, I just love you, and I’m asking you to make me tall,” I’ve prayed that prayer. It seems to be going the other way. “Just please make me tall, blonde. Could you give me a handsome husband?” That one got answered. “Give me perfect children.” That one got answered too, parents, we know. “Could you give me a big house and new cars and lots of followers and Louis Vuitton, God, do you know Louis Vuitton? All for your glory, God.” Y’all get it, right? You get it when I pray it, but do you get it when you pray it?

Let God show us when we’re being proud, because if I’m proud, you’re resisting me, and I do not want God resisting me. I want to be responsive to God, and I want God responsive to me. And he tells me how to get in that place.

In 1 Peter chapter 3, he specifically addresses husbands. But I believe Peter is teaching us something in this about prayer, that how we relate to other people makes a difference in whether prayer is answered or not. Peter wrote:

In the same way you married, men should live considerately with your wives, with an intelligent recognition of the marriage relation, honoring the woman as physically the weaker, but realizing that you are joint heirs of the grace of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered and cut off. Otherwise, you cannot pray effectively.

You see, our relationship to God and to other people affects the effectiveness of our prayers. It means we are new creatures in Christ. We are now part of the kingdom of God, and we cannot think, speak, live, and act the same way we did before we came to the Lord. We said no to that. And even though our flesh sometimes responds in the same way, we crucify it, we put that flesh response down, and we draw upon the strength of God and the Spirit of God who now lives in us to help us think, speak, feel, and decide differently. It’s a process. And here’s the good news: God works with us in the process to do better, think better, higher. God’s thoughts are higher, they’re better. Let’s get there. Let’s get up into that place.

Jesus said in Mark 11:25, “When you stand praying, forgive.” Forgive, forgive. Pastor David taught a masterful hot potato message on that, if you weren’t here, you should go and listen to it.

So our prayers may go unanswered because they were never prayed. We prayed with the wrong motive. The answer was given but not received, not caught and held on to. They were not answered because we presumed to think God would do something, or because we’re holding on to sin, pride, and unforgiveness with a greater grip than we hold on to God himself. That gives us a lot to think on.

Praying for other people

But a lot of what we’ve just covered has to do with prayers that we pray for ourselves. I want to talk for just a minute about prayers that we pray for other people. We’ve learned a lot about this, and we still have much more to learn.

Many years ago, Marshall and I were in ministry in Seguin, Texas, with Andrew and Jamie. Andrew was trying to sell a car, he had it parked on the main street. Main Street in Seguin probably had twenty cars a day drive down it, but nevertheless, it was parked there with a for-sale sign, and he got not one inquiry. It wasn’t a great car, but it would be a great car for someone who didn’t have a car.

So he was praying one morning, “Lord, I need this car to sell. I need the money from the car to help Jamie and me with some expenses we have. Show me what to do to get this car to sell.” And he felt he heard in his spirit, “Pray for a buyer.” He said, “I’d never thought about that.” He’d just been praying, “God, sell the car, God, sell the car,” and nothing happened. But he began to pray, “Lord, there’s someone this car will be a blessing to, and I pray that it would be that for them. They are in need of a car. I pray for a buyer who has the money to come see this car, bring them here, so they see the car and are impressed to call me about it.” And within just a few days, the car was sold.

Marshall and I have used this at least two times when we needed to sell a house. We didn’t want lookers, because if you’ve ever sold a house, you know you have to keep it picked up and clean for people to come see it all the time, and if you live in the house with kids, that’s an impossibility. So we prayed for qualified buyers, and it took a while, but we got them. They got a house they loved, and we got the income from the sale that we needed to purchase the next house. God works with us in all kinds of things. Pray and don’t quit.

Spiritual resistance requires persistence

When you and I are praying on behalf of someone else, and many of us are in this room, I know it, I am, I know you are, we’re engaged in intercessory prayer. We’re praying for someone we love who has not yet come to Jesus, or needs to come back to walking with Jesus. These are prayers where it’s not just what we want and what God wants, it is God’s will that all men come to the acknowledging of the truth of him, of who he is, and come to true salvation in him. He has stated that it is his will.

So when we’re praying for that person, we’re not waiting for God to swoop down and pick them up. What we need to be praying is that the blindness over the person’s eyes will be broken off, that the hardness of heart will soften, that the light of God can stream into them so they can see what they can’t see right now, that they’ll be able to see the truth of God, that they’ll experience God. “God, send people across their path, even online, in a movie, all kinds of places. You have ways and means. You know what will touch the heart of the person that I love. And God, I thank you that you’re doing it, that you’re at work.” Jesus is interceding too.

And listen, when you’re praying those kinds of prayers, you have to forget your timeline and go for the outcome. It doesn’t matter, well, it’ll matter to me, I just wish they’d come to church with me and sit by me. That’s a selfish prayer, wrong motive. Go back, go back.

These things are invaluable, they’re important. Daniel chapter 10, Daniel prayed what he knew was the will of God. He saw it in the scrolls: it had been prophesied that the nation of Israel would be in captivity in Babylon for seventy years, and they had been there for seventy years. Daniel said, “I’m going to prayer. We’re going to get this thing that is the will of God into manifestation. It’s going to happen.” He prayed for three full weeks, and nothing changed, nothing happened. On the twenty-first day, an angel appeared to him down by the river, where he and his friends were praying, and said, “Daniel, I’ve come to tell you something. The very first day you prayed, your prayer was heard. God heard it. But I have been held back by the prince of Persia over this region, and Michael had to come and help me fight this off, so that I could get to you to tell you that God has heard your prayer, and he is in the process of answering it.”

Persistence. Spiritual resistance requires persistence.

When prayers go unanswered and it hurts

Listen, family, just give me a few more minutes, I promise. I know this, and God knows this, in this room right now, and for people watching the livestream: many of us have prayed for things fervently. We’ve prayed as best we knew how, with faith toward God, with our whole heart. We prayed for healing. We prayed for salvation. We’ve prayed for all manner of things. And it didn’t happen. And a person we loved went on to heaven. It hurts. It breaks your heart. It’s gut-wrenching.

Marshall and I got two calls like that just this week. A man we know in ministry passed on into heaven. He finished his race, but there’s still heartbreak, his wife, his kids, the people he ministered to, they love him, they miss him, they wished he could have stayed longer. I don’t think he’s wishing that this morning. But you understand that heartbreak, right? And God understands.

The same week, we got another phone call, a text message, about a family we know and love, both of them live in different states, and their newborn baby daughter was stillborn. Gut-wrenching. Literally, you feel like your guts have been ripped out of your body. We don’t like it. We don’t understand it. We don’t want it to be this way.

I want to remind you of this: the Scripture tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 that the very last enemy to be put under the feet of Jesus is death. Death, you know it, you feel it, it rips your guts out. Death is the enemy of God. It is not God. He does not delight in death. He does not kill people. He raises people up. But death is part of life on a broken earth that has not yet been redeemed. There will come a day, there will come a place, where there will be no more death. But right now, we all experience it. It’s part of life here. It’s God’s enemy, and it’s your enemy. And if Satan can, he will take you out of your place and out of your race when someone you love deeply dies.

My prayer, and God’s prayer, is that God will give you the strength. He will heal the broken heart. He will strengthen you with his Spirit. He will put you back together. And you won’t just barely make it, barely survive. He’ll keep working, he’ll keep mending, he’ll keep repairing, and he will get you back up on your feet, back in your place. And you will finish out all the days of your life honoring him, singing, “Worthy, worthy, worthy is the one who will conquer and put death under his feet.”

Would you stand on your feet with me, please?

Never quit praying

The last point is this, you know it, I’ve already said it: never quit praying. “I can’t. I prayed, nothing happened, so it just seems like God doesn’t hear me.” He who answers prayer, to the one who hears, to the one who answers prayer, to the giving God.

Jesus said in Luke chapter 18, you must always pray and not quit. And in James chapter 5, remember, James talked about prayer at the beginning of the book, in the middle, and at the end, in James 5:16 he said, “The effectual, fervent prayers of a righteous man avail much.” They make tremendous power available, dynamic in its working.

God needs your prayers. Why? I don’t know. But he decided it would be that way. And we’re kids of God, and we’re going to be obedient children to our Father. And because our Father said to pray, we’re going to do it. And we’re going to believe that he is going to teach us and train us how to become more and more effective in all the prayers that we pray, not just for ourselves, but for one another. Amen.

Father, we thank you for your help this morning. We need it, we need it. You know that our mortal bodies were just made of dust. You said our lives pass quickly, as a mist or a vapor. And yet you’re with us every day, every moment of these lives. And God, right now you’ve put us here on the earth in this day and in this time so that we could become your ambassadors on the earth, so that we could live our lives in such a way that our light, the light of God that you put within us, would shine forth and shine out into the darkness of this world, and that men and women and little children and grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles and strangers and neighbors would all be drawn, not to me, but to your light.

You’ve put us here, and you’ve left us here for these days and in this time, so that we could stay before your face night and day, so that we could persist in prayer, and that even when resistance is here against what you want to do, we would stand in agreement with you, and your will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven, to greater and greater degrees, with more and more effectiveness, all for your glory.

Father, I pray this morning that anyone here who’s in that brokenhearted place, a prayer they prayed, especially regarding a loved one who has passed on into heaven, God, I pray that you come underneath them. Even now, let them begin to feel the strength that they don’t have. They don’t have it, God, but you do. Get under them, hold them. You’re under them, you’re above them, you’re wrapped around them, you’re holding on to them. And you, God, will help them get back up on their feet and live, because there are rivers of your living water that can still flow from the inside of their very being. God, we thank you for your help, and we thank you for helping us to never quit praying, in the name of Jesus. Can you say amen, church?