Have you ever had a prayer left unanswered?

Maybe it was the reason you doubt Christianity and God. Maybe it was left unanswered so that you could have another prayer answered—and that’s what brought you to faith.

Having prayers unanswered is probably one of the hardest things to understand about God. Especially when He doesn’t immediately tell us why it’s left unanswered and He’s just…silent.

Now we like to come up reasons that God is silent during the trials or doesn’t answer a prayer, but sometimes His reasons are just unknown. Will we be able to ask him someday? Of course! He might give you an answer, but He might not. What God does is not in our power, but He does it for our good. There are some things that our brains just can’t comprehend or understand to the extent that we want to understand.

But why can’t or won’t God answer our prayers? Like if your dad is dying of cancer and you ask God to heal your dad and He doesn’t. Why won’t He? I mean, He’s God after all, He can do it—and if He loves you as much as we say He does, then wouldn’t He save your dad?

Like I said. We won’t know. Sometimes it’s for your good, sometimes it’s for, in this case, your dad’s good.

But I do have one answer for you as to why your prayers might not be answered:

We have this big idea of what it would look like for it to be answered. But God thinks outside of the box with what He does and who He uses for His plan. This extends to prayers and how He answers them.

Isaiah 55:88-9 describes this perfectly: “’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV)

If this doesn’t make sense, then I have a real-life example for you.

I had this family friend who I’ll call James. We knew him when we lived in Boston, MA and he was around seven at the time. When he was two years old, he was diagnosed with brain tumors. Through the rest of his life he had been in and out of the hospital for surgeries and treatment. The past few months, he’d been in the hospital and things had spiraled downward quite seriously and he was having several surgeries every week.

His family had literally hundreds of prayer warriors constantly asking on James’ behalf for him to be healed, for some miracle to happen. He was in so much pain, was often asleep because of the amount of medicine, and wasn’t really able to speak much.

Almost a month ago, on September 18th, he passed away. He was ten years old. In a little over a month away he would have turned eleven years old.

At first, our prayers seemed to be unanswered. We asked for him to be healed, for him to not be in pain, for him to be able to live in peace for once.

But as it sunk it, we (or at least I) realized: this was the healing that we had prayed for. Had we asked for him to die? No, but we asked for him to be healed, no longer in pain, and at peace. And now he is: he loved Jesus with all his heart and was constantly telling his nurses and doctors about Jesus, no matter how much pain he was in.

And God answered our prayers outside the box.

Of course, I’m not glad he died. But rather, I’m grateful that James is living in freedom with God, worries and cares of the world left behind him.

It might not always be ideal or it might not even be what we think an answer should be. But someday we will understand.

Thanks for reading, I hope you guys all have a great week!
~Willow