Un-Answered Prayers

(Un)Answered Prayers:

Have you ever felt like your prayers to God are pointless and that they simply float off into some distant black hole in space?

A friend of mine recently shared with me, “What God taught me this past year is that there are layers upon layers of faith.” What my friend was saying is that when we are saved by grace through faith in Christ - that’s not the end, but rather the beginning of our walk with Jesus. The longer I walk with Him the more I find myself in awe of our LORD. Not because God has blessed me with stuff, and not even because God answers my prayers; but because often times He loves me enough not to.

Recently I was in a position to do some public speaking. I prepared and felt confident and relaxed going into it, but just moments before I went up on stage - things went south in a hurry. During the brief talk I knew that things were bad, which compounded my anxiety exponentially. Afterward I had a conversation with God and asked, “Why?” Why did You let me bomb so horribly? I prayed earnestly before hand that God would relieve all my stress and anxiety, that my message would be clear, and that He would be glorified through it. So my question to God was “Why?”

Yesterday God revealed the answer to me. I was praying for God to give me a shot of confidence - something that would be a quick fix for my symptoms, but not a permanent solution to the underlying problem. God is more interested in the health of our character than our immediate circumstances. God could care less about personal performance, production, and perfection in our circumstance, but what He does care about is the health of our relationship with Him (first and foremost) and through that relationship - the health of our relationship with others.

I didn’t want God to address the underlying issue(s) of perfectionism, personal insecurity, and the scars & wounds of my past - I just wanted God to hit me with some spiritual anesthesia or confidence-serum and leave all of my brokenness alone. But God cares too much to answer those kinds of selfish and superficial prayers.

Things went south quickly so that my unwarranted self-confidence and internal issues could be revealed and dealt with through prayer, dialogue, and desire. Prayers that are honest with God in asking Him to help me with anything in my life that causes separation and self-dependence. Dialogue with godly friends and counselors who lovingly help me to see my blind-spots and shortcomings; and desire for the person whom God wants me to be - not the person I want me to be (thankfully!).

So if you look back at times in your life when God didn’t answer a prayer - or multiple prayers, then my loving advice to you is: 1) Don’t write God off. He is the God of love and truth. He’s not the God of quick fixes, spiritual highs, and circumstances - He is the God of character development and intimacy. He’s making us, day-by-day, into the image of His Son Jesus, because He desires that level of intimacy with us! 2) Ask God to reveal the underlying stuff - the junk - in your life that only He can reveal and cure - the false confidence (hubris, egotism, and self-righteousness), the insecurities, the brokenness, the sin.

God desperately desires to address the character issues in our lives, the junk, and the underlying sin. He does this not to embarrass us, but to draw us into Himself so close that nothing of the “old self” remains - and when He looks at us He sees the person He always intended for us to be, the person that God Almighty created in His image and likeness.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.”

-Psalm 139:13

“Teach me your way, LORD, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may revere and honor your name.”

-Psalm 86:11

Blessings,

-Kevin