27 July 2025 - when prayers aren't answered

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

And I tell you, ask and you will receive;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.

Sometimes we ask but we don't receive. This is difficult since it seems to imply a contradiction with the apparent meaning of the promise of Jesus. It is similar to the place where Jesus said, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours" (see Mark 11:24). The fact that we are sometimes surprised that our prayers are not answered proves that we did ask with some measure of faith and expectation, some reasonably robust belief that what we asked was a good and worthy desire. If we take the promise of Jesus seriously it leads us to wonder in what ways our prayers are deficient such that they seldom seems to produce miracles. We know we must pray in faith and for things that are consistent with the will of God. But is it the case, then, that our faith is insincere, or that our intentions are really so far from the will of God.

Father, hallowed be your name

We should go back to the beginning. The basis of our prayer is our relationship with God as our Father. This implies that we can and should trust him in a way similar to the trust of a human child in his earthly father. The child may believe he desires something good, and ask for that thing certain he will receive it. But the father sees a bigger picture. He may sometimes withhold things that are harmful, or even less good, for the sake of something greater he desires to give. A child need not be crushed, feel abandoned, or run away from home, every time he must defer to his father's wisdom and judgment rather than his own. He might not, will in fact probably not, see the chain of reasoning in every case, or even in most cases. But he can believe that his father really does have his good at heart even in such times, even in spite of his own feelings and reasoning. It need not make him doubt that his father would give him what he wants in the future, provided that what he wants will really be for his good.

I tell you,
if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves
because of their friendship,
he will get up to give him whatever he needs
because of his persistence.

Sometimes we don't receive that for which we ask because God has better plans. But sometimes the reason we don't receive is because we don't ask in the right way, that being, with persistence. Jesus did not tell his disciples to ask once and then receive immediately. Rather, as the Amplified translation reminds us, he told them, "Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you" (see Matthew 7:7). The point of persistence, however, is not exactly to earn our request being granted by putting in sufficient spiritual work. There is not necessarily a proportion between the persistence required and the goal desired. But God does sometimes require persistence of us because he desires us to grow. He desires that our own desires for those things that are genuine goods because more than momentary whims but rather strong and fixed parts of our character, things that we pursue even without any obvious or immediate results because of how good and how important we believe them to be. This means that when we don't immediately receive those things that we request we are not necessarily to give up and assume that we are asking for the wrong things. They may well be the right ones. But we may need to press on and pursue them more, to fix our will upon them in a still greater way. But if so, how do we avoid the possibility of fixing ourselves on things that actually aren't God's will because we think we might just need to keep asking? 

Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test.

We are meant to live in a relationship with God such that our prayer helps us to come to an ever deeper appreciation of his heart. If this is what is in fact happening then we can be confident that if we are asking for something harmful he will eventually help us to understand and let go of that request. If we are not asking for things as good as he wants to give because we don't yet really desire those things our life of prayer should help us come to desire them. We may be above the level of pursuing snakes and scorpions because they look exciting. But we might still be at the level where we prefer eggs or fish to the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is a normal, human level. But God wants to take us higher.

What father among you would hand his son a snake
when he asks for a fish?
Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?
If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the Father in heaven
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

Songs In His Presence - The House Of God