5 Keys to Unanswered Prayer
Do you ever wonder why so many of your prayers go unanswered?
Perhaps you’ve stopped praying because you seldom see answers to prayer? God forbid, but do you feel like God never answers any of your prayers? If so, I want to start by assuring you that this feeling—which is only a feeling and not the truth—doesn’t have to leave you feeling abandoned.
Never trust your feelings.
Luther once said, “Feelings come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving, my warrant is the Word of God. Naught else is worth believing. So, what does the Bible say?
“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.” (Matthew 7:7-8, NIV).
“Asking is the law of
the Kingdom” (Spurgeon)
If we don’t ask, how can be ever expect to receive? James 4:2 says, ”We have not because we ask not.” A prayer video summarized this for me: “The greatest tragedy of the Christian life is not unanswered prayer but unoffered prayer.”
Some have argued, if God knows what I want, why do I keep having to ask him for it? Jesus taught us that persistence in prayer is a key to effective prayer: to keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking on the door. There are some reasons for this.
Sometimes we must wait for the right timing. We are asking for something but the time is not right. David wanted to build a temple in Jerusalem to honor God – a glorious desire – but God said, the timing is not right. Solomon, David’s son, was to build the temple. At other times, we we must wait until our faith is strengthened.
Persistent prayer builds faith
“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16, NIV). Timothy Keller once said, “It is a tremendous truth. God deigns to hear prayer. He allows the world to be “in some sense” under the control of the power of prayer. Thus, is prayer powerful and effective.” powerinprayer_480p_mov
“According to Jesus, effective prayer is not measured by the number of words or eloquence. We can’t make God do what we want through fancy speech or words. Don’t be like them, Jesus said, because your Father already knows everything you need and even when you don’t see it He is working for your good” (Deborah Rosenkranz).
The following is a sort of self-checklist we can apply to make sure our prayers are powerful and effective: In the first place,
1. Check Your Motives.
Are you dictating to God the method He should use to answer your prayer? For example, how are you praying for a loved one’s conversion? Must it happen in your denomination? Does it matter what church s/he uses? If so, please consider that you may unwittingly be hindering the process. My older brother came back to Christ after 20 years in a Methodist church. But he’s back!
God responds to purity
of motive
What is your motive? Would an answer to prayer make your life easier? Our prayers should come from a genuine, deep desire for God to be glorified to the maximum regardless of the cost to us, or to the person we are praying for.
Equally important are some crucial questions we need to ask when we are not seeing immediate answers to our prayers:
- Does God want to do something different?
- Do I need God to purify my motives?
- Does God want to change me and stretch my faith?” [Hull, John. Pivotal Praying . Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition].
“Some of the greatest periods of growth in my life came when I didn’t get results from the way I was praying.” ust maybe God wants you to…
2. Consider The Lessons God Is Trying To Teach You.
Particularly, if answers to your prayers seem to be taking the long voyage. I love what
Herbert Lockyer said about this: “When prayers make long voyages, they come back the richer, loaded with greater treasures. And God gives liberal interest for the waiting interval.”
Delay is not denial!
Do you want to learn more than you want your circumstances to be changed? If more glory can come to the Lord by delaying answers to your prayers, is it alright with you? Must it happen your way or no way? Or are you willing to wait? Involve God in every detail of your life. What might you need to spread out before the Lord in prayer today? Go to Him with your anxious thoughts and concerns.He hears and responds and the result is peace of mind and heart is the waiting interval. Equally important is the next key:
3. Let God with Total Relinquishment.
God knows that we mean business when we do. Can you say, “Use anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances, to bring your lost loved one to God?” Whatever it takes? “An endless supply of abundant life increases with every relinquishment to God.
Let go and let God!
Oswald Chambers’s insight is enlightening: “Even the weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the Son of God, when he is willing to ‘let go.’ But any effort to ‘hang on’ to the least bit of our own power will only diminish the life of Jesus in us.
We have to keep letting go, and slowly, but surely, the great full life of God will invade us, penetrating every part” [Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 74–75, quoted in Busic, David A..
Way, Truth, Life: Discipleship as a Journey of Grace, p. 123].
Anna Kennon agonized in prayer over her wayward sons. One night at the altar, I encouraged her to put her boys on altar quoting
Psalm 37:5, “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” In an act of total relinquishment Anna committed here teenage boys to God and not long thereafter each one came back to God.
Commit means “to throw.”
To clarify, we throw the ones for whom we are concerned at the feet of a caring God, “asking that He will act in way that brings greatest glory to His name in their circumstances.” Surrender is another word that comes to mind when I think of relinquishment.
Why not pray Wesley’s “Prayer of Relinquishment” today:
“I am no longer my own, but Thine. Put me to what Thou wilt, rank me with whom Thou wilt; put me to doing, put me to suffering, let me be employed for Thee or laid aside for Thee, exalted for Thee or brought low for thee; let me be full, let me be empty; let me have all things, let me have nothing; I freely and heartily yield all things to Thy pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spriit, Thou art mine, and I am Thine. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”
The next key is one we too easily forget:
4. Never Underestimate Spiritual Warfare.
At times we must fight, fight, fight! Warfare like a wrestling match. Victory seldom won in the first round or necessarily in the second or third. Persistence is necessary in order to win. We’re in a battle.
Life’s a battlefield not
a playground!
God’s power is infinitely greater than satan’s. Never underestimate the level of
spiritual warfare pitted against you. C. Peter Wagner once told a group of leaders, “Christians are the target, but pastors and their families are the bulls-eye.” He also said, “The higher you go on the ladder of leadership, the higher you go on Satan’s hit list.”
Spiritual warfare is
a way of life.
.The devil hates all Christians. I used to say that there is no way he “hates” or targets pastors more. I guess I was complaining a little too much about this to my wife. She had already gone to work when I noticed the note on the bathroom mirror with these words, “The higher you go on a ladder, the more your behind is exposed.”
When C. Peter Wagner told us that satanists pray for our downfall, I went back to my church to enlist intercessors to cover me in prayer. And God gave me nearly 50.
Expect to be tempted by [satan] in some degree or another, all of your life. because this life is a continual warfare. We must never expect to have rest from our spiritual adversary the devil, or to say, our combat with him is finished. Our fight with the evil one will continue until we bow our heads and our spirit is removed from our body and is brought into the presence of our dear precious Savior Jesus Christ!
1 John 4:4 (NIV) — “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome the, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” Someone has to lose in this battle, and it’s not going to be us!” Declare this in faith enough times, and the devil will start believing us and will finally give up. We can cooperate with God and frustrate Satan’s plans.
“Don’t let the devil set the agenda of your prayer life!”
Doug Small’s advice? “Don’t allow the devil to take over your prayer life by making everything you pray about be about spiritual warfare! If you do, you obsess on living in a fallen world. Don’t be problem-oriented but purpose-driven in your praying. Learn to pray the Bible in a way that helps you see His holiness.”
I John 5:4-5 (NLT) tells us how believers win this battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Our life here is, and must still be, a continual warfare. But though all our paths lead us through enemy territory, we have Jesus, who has conquered every enemy. He is with us, and our hearts should not fail so long as we can hear His brave voice encouraging us: “In the world you will have
tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
Our greatest weapon in spiritual warfare is prayer!
If we fail it will be because we failed to pray. You can never over pray when crisis drives you to your
knees. Becky Thompson of
Engage Magazine opined, “If you’re overwhelmed by the fact that there’s nothing you can do except pray, then my friend, you undervalue your greatest weapon.” Finally, does faith have anything to do with effective prayer?
5. Great Faith accomplishes greater things.
Faith as little as a
mustard seed can accomplish great things; but great faith can move mountains. Faith is the key to becoming “a mountain mover” in prayer. Jesus affirms that “faith brings us into this status, this place in God’s work.” Miracles happen in response to prayers made in faith.
What matters most is what our faith is in, the object of our faith. “The eye cannot see itself. Did you ever see your own eye? In a mirror you may have done so, but that was only a reflection of it. And you may, in like manner, see the evidence of your faith, but you cannot look at the faith itself. Faith looks away to itself to the object of faith, even to Christ.” (Spurgeon)
The things we ask for (especially with right motives) are of great value; so let’s not be discouraged if we don’t receive quick answers. Intercession requires persistence. So we should ask intensely and seek relentlessly. Knock forcefully. Start praising God regardless of what you see or don’t see because you believe He is working.
