Prayer
Looking Deeper in
How Long, O Lord? Waiting Well in God’s Silence
Why doesn’t God answer me? How long, Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? PSALM 13:1-2
25 years. That’s how
3 days. That’s how long
13 years. That’s how
12 years. That’s how
15 years. That’s how long it took before David ruled over Israel after he was anointed as king.
38 years. That’s how
long Abraham waited for the son God promised him. long Joseph waited for the fulfilment of the dream God gave him.
Jonah waited in the belly of a fish for God’s answer to his prayer.
long a woman with bleeding waited for healing before she met Jesus. long a crippled man in Jerusalem waited for the full use of his body.
S
ome of these people were waiting for promises to be fulfilled. Some were just waiting. All of them faced unexpected twists and turns along the way. It seems like waiting and uncertainty are things all of God’s people must wrestle with. We are all destined to cry out at some point: “How long, Lord?” Even now questions and doubts may well be circling round your mind: Has God forgotten me? Have I done something wrong? Is He even listening? Why won’t He answer my prayers? Perhaps you resonate with Tim, a member of the Our Daily Bread Ministries team, who shared his story with us: remember sitting in the car with my wife in the “carIpark of the doctor’s surgery. Both of us were devastated. We’d just been told I had a condition that meant I was unable to have kids—ever. But I also remember thinking in that moment, God’s got this; He will sort it. And so I prayed, asking God to heal me and to allow us to have children. Every time I had an opportunity to receive healing, I’d be the first in the queue, thinking to myself, God’s got this, I’ll be healed and we’ll be able to have kids. But it never happened. I started to ask the same questions to myself: Why isn’t God answering my prayer? Am I not a good enough Christian? Am I too sinful? My faith and my confidence were shaken.
”
[2] HOW LONG, O LORD?
Are you asking God to keep a promise in His Word— yet as the years go by you feel less sure He’s listening? Or are you growing increasingly fearful that God isn’t going to come through for you in a difficulty you face? There are no easy answers when we feel like God has fallen silent. The stories of Abraham, Joseph, David and the many other heroes of the faith don’t necessarily teach us exactly how God will answer our prayers (many of them were waiting for specific things God had promised; we might not have such specific promises for our own situations). But these stories do remind us: “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry” (Psalm 34:15). If you have placed your faith in Jesus, then you have been made righteous and this promise is for you. God hears your every word and every cry. You are not alone; in fact, you are in better company than you could possibly imagine . . .
WHY DOESN’T GOD ANSWER ME? [3]
Why didn’t the Father answer Jesus?
I
t’s the worst night of your life. You’re all alone, abandoned by your best friends and surrounded by people who want to harm you. You know that unless God turns up for you, things are going to go from bad to worse. So you cry out to God for rescue. Through the night you call out again and again for His faithful deliverance. And then you hear the heavy footsteps of your enemies drawing in around you. Your prayers haven’t been answered . . . The truth is that the burden of wrestling with unanswered prayers becomes somewhat easier to bear as soon as we realise that Jesus Himself also met silence when He cried out to His Father. Matthew 26:36-46 describes Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane. Alone, He fell onto the ground and prayed three times through the night: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (vv. 39, 42, 44). Yet no
[4] HOW LONG, O LORD?
deliverance came; Jesus was still arrested, beaten, falsely accused and executed on the cross. What can we learn from Jesus’ own unanswered prayer?
Jesus truly knows what these seasons are like: When we’re struggling through times of God’s
apparent silence, we can take great comfort that even in the arena of unanswered prayer, Jesus has “sympathy for our weakness, [having been] tempted in every way, just as we are” (Hebrews 4:15).
These times are not about a lack of faith:
Feeling like our prayers are falling on deaf ears can lead to crippling doubts: Have I not prayed hard enough? Is my faith too small? Yet if Jesus, being “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens” (Hebrews 7:26), could experience silence from the Father, then our own similar experiences are not necessarily to do with our goodness or faith.
God’s plan is better than ours: What would
have happened if God had agreed to Jesus’ request? Jesus would not have had to face the agony of the cross, drinking the cup of God’s wrath against our sin (see Isaiah 51:17; Revelation 14:10), and death itself. And He would not have beaten sin and death for us in His resurrection. The Father could have kept His Son comfortable, but His terrible suffering allowed a far greater plan to take place; it allowed us to also enter the Father’s presence as co-heirs with Christ, covered
WHY DIDN’T THE FATHER ANSWER JESUS? [5]
and blessed by His righteousness. When God doesn’t answer our requests as we would like, it’s because He has something far greater in store.
We need others to stand with us: Why did Jesus ask Peter, James and John to “stay here and keep watch with me”? Because His soul was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38). God does provide, even in times of apparent silence, through the support and presence of His family. When we are filled with doubts and confusion, let’s imitate Jesus and reach out to our Christian friends and family to stand with us when we can’t see the way ahead. We need to pray in line with God’s will:
Jesus didn’t just ask for the cross and all it entailed to be removed; He also said: “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” We can ask God for anything, presenting all our requests to Him. But our stance should be as people who trust our King more than our own instincts. True faith isn’t deciding what’s best for ourselves and claiming that to be God’s will; the deepest faith is when we put our trust in the loving character of our heavenly Father.
We can still experience “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). This peace is not about getting
immediate answers or exactly what we want, but knowing we have been heard, we are loved and that God will answer—and answer well. This is why, when the mob approached, Jesus didn’t respond with dismay or
[6] HOW LONG, O LORD?
despair, wondering why the Father had abandoned Him. Instead, confident in the Father’s love and character, He roused His friends from sleep, saying: “Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” (Matthew 26:46). Perhaps the most important conclusion we can draw is that God does answer prayer! The Father may have been silent during Jesus’ night of prayerful wrestling, but as the mob marched into the garden, the Father’s answer to His Son was clear: “The plan must continue. We must rescue our people.”
WHY DIDN’T THE FATHER ANSWER JESUS? [7]
How do I pray according to God’s will?
G
eorge Müller founded the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol in 1854. It’s estimated that he cared for over 10,000 orphans during his life, and brought Christian education to more than 120,000 children. Crucially, George Müller was a man of prayer who regularly saw God meet the orphanage’s daily needs. Yet he also wrote: “I am now, in 1864, waiting upon God for certain blessings, for which I have daily besought Him for 19 years and 6 months, without one day’s intermission. Still the full answer is not yet given concerning the conversion of certain individuals.” [1] George Müller knew what it was to receive immediate provision from God; and he knew what it was to wait in silence.
We need to know what God’s will is: “It is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13). But, what is God’s good purpose? The chapter continues that God wants us [8] HOW LONG, O LORD?
to become “blameless and pure,” shining “like stars” in this dark world (v. 15) as we “hold firmly to the word of life” (v. 16). In other words, God’s goal isn’t our comfort or temporary pleasure; it is our holiness. Let’s be clear: our happiness matters a great deal to Jesus. He is the One who offers us “life to the full” (John 10:10). But the way to greater fulfilment is to know Him, to become more like He is and to be increasingly set apart from the ways of this world; in other words, to grow in holiness. Because Müller prayed in submission to God’s will, he was able to write these painful, yet most profound words after his wife’s death: “The last portion of Scripture which I read to my precious wife was this: ‘The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly’ (Psalm 84:11). . . . I said to myself, with regard to the latter part, ‘no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly’—Therefore, if it is really good for me, my darling wife will be raised up again, sick as she is. God will restore her again. But if she is not restored again, then it would not be a good thing for me. And so my heart was at rest. I was satisfied with God.” [2]
We need to know what God has and hasn’t promised us: Müller had an explanation for why some of his prayers met silence, while thousands of others were answered within seconds. It was all to do
HOW DO I PRAY ACCORDING TO GOD’S WILL? [9]
with God’s promises in the Bible. For example, he prayed for many people to be saved, but knew that in Scripture there was no specific promise that those very individuals would be saved. While he did not give up praying and entrusting those souls to the Holy Spirit, he did not lose heart when no speedy answers were forthcoming. On the other hand, Müller readily took hold of what God does promise in His Word. When he prayed for the needs of the orphans, he based his faith on these words of Jesus: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). We don’t have to look far to find similar promises of God’s provision for our daily needs (see Psalm 34:10; Romans 8:32; Philippians 4:19). God invites us to trust every need to His care, provision and timing. His promises are specific enough for us to take hold of, as Müller did. While it is not up to us to decide how or when God will meet those needs, the point is clear: we will be given what we need, when we need it.
[1]
The Autobiography of George Müller (page 296)
A Narrative of Some of the Lord’s Dealings with George Müller Written by Himself, Part 2 (page 745)
[2]
[10] HOW LONG, O LORD?
What should I expect when I pray?
P
raying is not meant to be a shot in the dark; always wondering if our words will land in God’s ears or if He even desires to help us. The Bible’s teaching on prayer, and the prayers it shares with us, are there to help us have an expectation of prayer that match God’s plans and purposes. Here are just a few things to take away and consider so you can wait well during your own seasons of silence:
We will be tempted to lose heart: In Luke
18, Jesus told the parable of the persistent widow to show His disciples “that they should always pray and not give up” (v. 1). The underlying assumption is that we will be tempted to give up in our prayers. After years, months—maybe just days—without an obvious answer, our fervent prayers become more complacent until we stop bringing a particular need or person to God at all. Jesus’ teaching is clear: keep praying!
HOW DO I PRAY ACCORDING TO GOD’S WILL? [11]
God will answer: In Luke 18, after telling the story of the widow who got what she needed through her persistence, Jesus asked His disciples: “Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?” (v. 7). We’re not answered because of our nagging (like the widow) but because God is good and cares about our worries even more than we do. Psalm 18 is a jawdropping description of God responding when just one of His people pray: My cry came before him, into his ears. The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; . . . He parted the heavens and came down. PSALM 18:6-9
This is what the angels see when you pray; the earth trembling as God moves on your behalf. We cannot see it physically; but that’s why the Bible describes God’s reaction to our prayers so vividly, so that we might ‘see’ through the eyes of faith. His answer will be given according to His timing; but God’s Word reassures us that, in reality, there’s no such thing as an unanswered prayer.
We will draw closer to God: As we pray, pray, and pray again for the needs we have, we step into a life [12] HOW LONG, O LORD?
where we “pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). As with any relationship, our closeness with God depends on our communication with Him; ‘doing life’ in His presence and His strength. If we’re honest, we rarely learn to trust wholeheartedly in Him during easy times when we have everything we desire. It is often when God delays in answering prayers that we draw closer to Him and learn to lean on His strength.
Our hearts will be revealed: Our faith is most sorely tested when we feel like we are waiting in God’s silence, but this testing is not in vain (James 1:2-4). It reveals more about us. Often our trials show how impatient we are for God to act according to our time. Our painful losses may show how attached we are to the comforts of this world. Our anger at others may show how focused we are on our own plans and desires. As our true nature comes to light, our prayers change; now we’re not just asking for relief from circumstances, but for God to remove the sin we see within ourselves. And then we find we’re praying in line with God’s will: not just to be made happy, but to be made holy.
We will know God’s peace: As we have already read, peace in prayer is a promise of God. It’s one we can take hold of even in the silence. The peace of this world shifts and changes, relying on good circumstances for its existence. The peace Jesus gives doesn’t depend on how well our lives are going or how quickly God is answering us; it depends on knowing who He is. If we know that
WHAT SHOULD I EXPECT WHEN I PRAY? [13]
God is good and He loves us, then we know whatever He chooses to do will be just right; in that knowledge we can be at peace. As David wrote: “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?” (Psalm 56:3-4).
God will do more than we ask or imagine:
We started this booklet with Tim’s story of unanswered prayer, where he wrestled with his doubts: “Why isn’t God answering my prayer? Am I not a good enough Christian? Am I too sinful?” In time, Tim was able to answer his own questions: “No, not at all, He just had something better, something I could never have imagined. Six years later we finally adopted our little girl and she is just beautiful; we couldn’t imagine our lives without her. God never did answer my prayer for a physical healing—and I’m so glad He knew best.” Tim and his wife desperately wanted a child; but God knew that there was a little girl who desperately needed a loving family too. Sometimes we clash with God because we have already decided what the right answer is to our prayers. And then our faith is shaken when God doesn’t support our goals. But when we have this kind of expectation, we put limits on God and what we are willing for Him to do. Sometimes our seasons of silence are caused because we’re looking in all the wrong places for God’s answer.
[14] HOW LONG, O LORD?
Not only does God hear our every prayer, not only will He answer every request, and not only will He meet every need, but “He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21).
WHAT SHOULD I EXPECT WHEN I PRAY? [15]
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