Unanswered Prayer | Prayer E4 (From the Archive)

Hello and welcome to the John Mark Homer Teachings Podcast. My name is Yinka Dawson and I'm your host. Each week we feature teachings by John Mark or other voices in the formation space. It's wonderful to have you with us. We're in the middle of our prayer series, exploring different types of prayer and how to deepen our conversation with God. Today, John Mark tackles one of the most difficult tensions in the Christian life. How do we square Jesus' bold promise to answer prayer with the reality that so many of our prayers go unanswered? Drawing from Pete Gregg's book, God Unmute, he walks through 15 reasons our prayers might not be answered the way we expect and introduces us to the ancient practice of lament as a way to meet God honestly in our pain. Here's John Mark. Last week, I sat with a young mother in our church a few days after a miscarriage. And she was just grieving. And the back story was, she was at the Women's Night in prayer, and for a while, the Holy Spirit had been stirring up in her heart faith to step out in the things of the Spirit. And so for the first time ever, if I understand the story right, she came up to pray for somebody and had a prophetic word. And there was this beautiful moment. And right after that, she got up and went to the bathroom and started to bleed and came right back in. And so we need to pray and was full of faith. And she said, quote, I really believe that God was going to heal me. And they prayed and she lost the baby. What do you do with that? Tuesday night, sitting around the table with my Bridgetown community, grieving again. There's a child of one of the members in our community, an older mother now. And we've been praying for this child for months because he's been on the long, slow road to drug addiction and all that comes with it. We've been praying that he would check himself into a rehab center. and finally, like after months, the prayers answered and he said yes, went across the country and then we got a text in the group text saying he just checked out and left on foot, no money, nothing. What do you do with that? My own life, Friday, Tammy had a doctor's appointment. A lot of you have been praying for my wife, thank you, and know about our journey over the last year or two and the official diagnosis is in late stage active Lyme disease, which is rarely lethal, which is great, but it's still not good. It's a chronic illness. There is no cure. There's no prognosis. It was like between that, cancer, and MS for a while, and honestly we were rooting for MS or cancer. And so we feel so much love and so much support, and we're okay. But, man, like neither of us signed up for chronic illness. That wasn't like our thing. and you're praying, and I'm praying, in faith. What do you do with that? Now, with those stories in your mind, and I'm sure you have your own stories, right? Just listen to Jesus of Nazareth in John chapter 14. Have a look at verse 12. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name and I will what? Do it. Turn the page. Have a look at chapter 15, verse 7. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. Look down at verse 16. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you make go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that, here it is again, whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give you. Turn the page, chapter 16. Have a look at verse 23. In that day, you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly, I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive and your joy will be complete. Not once, not twice, not three times, but five times in one short little section, less than two chapters. Jesus makes a promise. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. Am I missing something here? Really, Jesus? anything? What about healing over my friend's womb? How is that not in your name? What about a wayward son that we love? What about my own wife's health, mother of three? If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. Do you feel that tension there? We're in a series, if you're new right now, on prayer. And each week we're looking at a type of prayer. So last week was an intercessory prayer, and there's a whole lot more to come. But this evening, I just want to hit the pause button and talk about the elephant in the room. And that is, why are so many of our prayers answered and so many of our prayers at the same time not answered? Why do we have a story like Cassie and the healing of the ear? And what was the Beatles song? Happiness is a warm gun. So good. The first thing to ever hear out of your left ear, beautiful. Why do we have a story like that right next to another story about death or disease or disappointment or letdown? And how do we live in the tension of both stories? That's the question I want to run after today. How do we square Jesus' promise to answer prayer with the reality that we all have of unanswered prayer? Now, the easy answer is that a lot of the things we pray for aren't in Jesus' name. Remember, in Jesus' name wasn't, you know, a magic incantation that you tack on to the end of your prayer to get what you want from God. It's not like the open sesame of the kingdom of God. In the first century, your name was a synonym for your nature. So to pray in Jesus' name, it's not a phrase that you tack on at all. It's a way of prayer. It means that you pray for things that are in line with Jesus' nature. Right? That's why God has still yet to answer my prayer for like a number one New York's Times bestseller. And a beach house to go with it, you know? and a Tesla to get there. Like that prayer is so far unanswered, right? Because I'm not sure that's exactly in line with Jesus' nature. He was more of a bicycle and homeless kind of guy, you know? And we laugh at that, but a lot of the things that we pray for aren't in Jesus' name. That said, that's not the problem. We get that, for the most part. The problem is all the things we pray for that are in Jesus' name that still, for whatever reason, go unanswered. So here's the plan. There's a book out called God on Mute by Pete Gregg, who's a friend of mine. He's a charismatic Anglican from the London area. We love those people. And he's the head of 24-7 Prayer, which is this international prayer movement. And he has the best thing I've ever come across on unanswered prayer. We have it for sale out in the NACs at the information desk. All I want to do tonight is in about 30 minutes just summarize his book. This is like more of a book report or a lecture than it is a sermon because it is honestly the best thing I've come across. I read it not that long ago, and it was just in my own journey with my wife. It's actually about his wife's health issues. It was so helpful. So all I want to do tonight is kind of whet your appetite, and then if you want more or to go deeper, pick up the book. All right? Yes? Okay, buckle up. We have a lot of ground to cover. Pete has 15 reasons, first ever 15-point sermon, wait for it, that our prayers, if you're like, start to hyperventilate right now, 15 reasons that our prayers go unanswered, grouped into three categories, God's world, God's will, and God's war. First off, God's world. The question here is, what kind of world are we living in? Why is it that in this world so many prayers go unanswered? Well, reason number one is common sense. Some prayers aren't answered because they're just plain stupid. And if that language is offensive, it's his, not mine, okay? That's cut, copy, paste. But I actually agree with him. Think about it. Some of the things that we pray for are really kind of dumb. How many of you have ever been driving late at night and you're about to run out of gas and you pray for a gas station? what exactly are you asking God to do like drop a gas station out of heaven in the middle of a cow pasture when you're five miles from Wilsonville like really it's not not a bad prayer but what exactly are we asking or Friday afternoon I was coming back from Southern California and I was in and I forgot that it's Memorial Day weekend and traffic was horrendous I think traffic is horrendous always down there but I'm on this freeway and I'm scared to miss my flight and so I start to pray that I make my flight. And then I'm like, but what am I actually praying for? God to like part the eight lane freeway, like the Red Sea, even the Red Sea was an all night affair. You know what I mean? Like, and really just God just move. Like, what am I exactly am I asking for? And it's not that God can't in the language of Jesus, all things are possible with God. But as we'll see, when God intervenes in the natural world, it creates a number of problems and issues. More on that in a bit. Reason number two is contradiction. Some prayers aren't answered because they contradict other prayers. There are seven plus billion people on the planet. Many of them are praying right now as we speak. It stands to reason that many of those prayers are contradictory. Here's the classic example. Two drivers are circling the parking lot, praying for a parking space. They both follow Jesus and go to Bridgetown Church. there's one parking space. Uh-oh, we have a problem. We have an existential problem on our hands. A bride is praying for sun on her wedding day while a mile away a farmer is praying for rain in the middle of a drought. Or on a more serious note, an Israeli mother is praying for no suicide bomber to kill her children at school while a Palestinian mother is praying for an end to Israel's oppression and injustice in the West Bank. To say yes to one prayer is to say no to another. Does God play favorites? If you get a parking spot, you know. Reason number three, the laws of nature. Some prayers aren't answered because they would be detrimental to the world and lives of others. Miracles are, by definition, rare. That's why we call them miracles and not the morning routine. C.S. Lewis put it this way, that God can and does on occasions modify the behavior of matter and produce what we call miracles is part of Christian faith. But the very conception of a common and therefore stable world demands that these occasions should be extremely rare. And that's because when God created the world, he built into it laws and principles to make life work. And most of the time they work very well. Often our prayer is for God to override those laws and principles. If you're in an airplane, hypothetical situation, and it's crashing, and you pray for God to save your life, what you're asking for is God to suspend gravity. If he were to do that, it would create all sorts of problems and issues for the rest of us down here on the ground. So for a silly example, but for the greater good, good our prayer goes unanswered Reason number four is this Life is tough Some prayers aren answered because creation is quote subjected to frustration and has not yet been fully quote, liberated from its bondage to decay. That's a line from Paul's letter to Rome. Tragically, life in such an environment is inevitably going to be acutely difficult at times. One of the things that we've lost sight of in middle-class America and around the West is that life is hard. It's always been hard, and it always will be hard until Jesus to return. Jesus said, in this world, or at least the way it is now, you will face what? Trouble. Peter, in his letter, writes, don't be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering as though something strange were happening to you. Like, when something bad happens to you, don't think it strange. That's normal life stuff. When you get sick or lose your job or your car breaks down or relationships go south, that's normal life. Nassim Taleb, his book Anti-Fragile that has been really helpful for me here, he writes about how this long run of peace and prosperity from, let's say the start date is 1989, it followed the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, to say 9-11 or then the financial crash in 2008 and the last few years of kind of global insanity we have this two or three decade span of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Now, if like me, you were born in 1980 or you're born in 90 or 2000, it's all you've ever known. But we forget that's not actually how life is. And he makes the point that it actually created an entire generation that is more emotionally fragile than ever before. Because we expect life to be easy when it's actually really hard. and so we're wrecked by just a little bit of trouble. It doesn't even have to be a lot, just by a little bit. I can't help but wonder if we need to adjust our expectations rather than have a crisis of faith every time we bump up against trouble. Reason number five is this, doctrine. Some prayers aren't answered the way we think they should be because our understanding and expectations of God are wrong. I know a number of people who have lost their faith because of unanswered prayer. And often this is simply due to bad doctrine or bad theology or just bad thinking. Again, people don't expect life to be hard. And so many of our prayers are aimed at middle class comfort in the American dream. And aimed at getting rid of any and all trouble from our life. And that's not bad. At the end of the Lord's Prayer, what does Jesus say? Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. I love Willard's translation of that. Don't let bad things happen to us. That's great. It's not bad to pray against bad things in your life. But the reality is very few of us ask for grace to face bad things in our life with Christ-like character. So it's not bad to pray that, but at the same time, we need a theology of suffering. We need a worldview, a thinking view of the world that says suffering is never God's will. More on that in a minute. but it is a reality this side of Jesus' return. There are beautiful moments when God steps in to protect you and me from suffering and those moments are a glimpse of the future. Greg, quote, when these things happen, we are granted a tantalizing foretaste of the new creation in which all things will conspire with unbounded complexity to perpetuate beauty and harmony for the glory of God. That's where we're headed, but we're not there yet. We're still in route. And so we wait, and I hope we wait in faith. It's a great story in Daniel about three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It's actually Abednego, but we say it wrong and whatever. In it, they are faced with a choice, either bow down to an idol in the center of Babylon or face death in a blazing furnace in this story. Listen to what they say when they are on trial. King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, listen to this, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it. I love that faith. That is a heck of a lot of faith. And he will deliver us from your majesty's hands. But here's the key line. Even if he does not, we want you to know your majesty that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. Notice their faith is deeper than whether or not their prayers get answered. Their faith isn't in prayer. It's in God himself and his goodness. Now, that's the first category, God's will. Second category, I'm sorry, God's world. Second category is God's will. The question here is how does God's will interact with the other wills at play? So remember last week I made the point that in the Lord's Prayer, you have that iconic line, your kingdom come, what? Your will be done, say it, on earth as it is in heaven. Now, if I'm reading Jesus right, he assumes two things. One, he assumes that heaven is the place where God's will is done all of the time. And two, he assumes that earth is the place where God's will is done some of the time. And prayer is how we live in that tension. Why? Because on earth there are other wills at play. There's at least four. First, there's God's will, as I said. Two, there's human's will. I have a will and a body to enforce my will on the world. So do you. So does the person to your right, to your left. If you're a parent, you know this better than anybody. Your child has a will of his or her own. If you have a spouse, you're like, dang, that's it. That's all. It's my summary of marriage right there. right? So do the other seven plus billion people on the planet, a will and a body to enforce their will. Some of those wills are bent in the direction of God, the father and toward all that is good and beautiful and true. Others of those will are bent in flat out rebellion against God and toward death and mayhem and destruction. Then three, there's spiritual beings' will. The universe is full of not only human beings, but spiritual beings, or if you prefer angels and demons or whatever language you like, all sorts of language in the New Testament. Once again, some of those beings are good, others are evil. In the same way that you and I have freedom, they have freedom either to follow God or not. And then finally, nature, so to speak, or creation in the language of the New Testament has a will. There's gravity. There's the weather patterns of the four seasons. There's E equals MC squared, all of that. Now, to preface this next session, this is an area of widespread disagreement in the global historic church. So if you don't agree with this next part, that's just fine. There is a spectrum. Some people emphasize God's sovereignty or his control. Others emphasize human and spiritual and natural freedom. And I'm a bit more on that side. Really the question that followers of Jesus disagree on is just, here's the question, just how often does God override other people's will or spiritual beings will or nature's will? That's the question. And really the deeper question underneath that is what kind of God is God? So here's my take along with Greg, five more reasons. Number six, and once again, we'll stay fast, so keep up. Number six, free will. Some prayers aren't answered because God will not force a person to do something he or she does not want to do. A lot of our prayers are essentially for God to override somebody's free will. I think of my community, praying for a wayward child. That's not a bad thing to do. But the thing is, I think that God will rarely override your will or mine. Why? Because God is love. And in the universe, God has chosen to actualize. spiritualize, love is the highest value, and love demands freedom. It demands a choice. No free will, no love. Again, it's not that God can't override human will, that his will is on an equal playing field with mine and Satan's or whatever. Not at all. He can and he does at times. It's that I think it's so against his nature to override our freedom. No matter what you believe about God's sovereignty. His kingdom is not a dictatorship. Satan is the one who controls, who's manipulative, who dominates with brute force, who rapes. God is the one who influences, who romances, who woos, who draws, who invites you into relationship. God is love, but the world is a terrifyingly free, dangerous, beautiful place to call home. This freedom is at the heart of all that is right with the world and sadly all that is wrong with it. Greg writes this, lodged in the reality of human free will, we recognize terrible danger, yet also the highest potential in the universe. I believe that it is this potential that is unlocked in Christian prayer. When Jesus promised miracles to those who pray in accordance with the will of God, he was not so much laying down a condition as making an observation. When a human being by the power of God's grace expresses a desire that is rooted not in his or her own selfishness, my will, but rather in God's plan for creation, thy will, such a posture reverses the bias of the fall in that individual's own life and reestablishes a little piece of Eden on earth. However, the very power of human choice that can release the purposes of God and prayer can also be used to resist God's will. Now, does this mean we should never pray for God to work in another person's heart or life? No, not at all. I would argue it means that we should pray for influence, not poor control, which leads me to reason number seven, which is this, influence. Some of our prayers aren't yet answered because they are working gradually and not as an impersonal mechanism of forced control. God, I think, does not like to use control, but he does like to use influence. He's done all sorts of work done lately in psychology as well as in sociology around the difference between control and influence, or in academic speak, between hard power and soft power, and how in the long run the latter is far more effective. Prayer is not hard power. It's not control. It's not a way to control other people. It's a mode of relational influence over people that we love and care about. That's why it's so very important to keep at it in prayer, to let the Holy Spirit lead and guide your prayers and your life, because often we're the own answer to our own prayer. You know what I'm talking about? We're praying for God to do something, and he's saying, sure, what time do you want to go? He's waiting on you and me. On that note, number eight, reason is this, God's best. Some prayers aren't answered because God has something better for us. Now, a few people who knew what I was teaching on this weekend said, oh yeah, it's like that Garth Brooks song. So I don't know the Garth Brooks song. I have no idea, but I've had like 15 people talk about. So apparently there's a Garth Brooks song that says this. All right. I guess he's right. I don't know the song, but I guess he's right. But how many of you could tell a story about how you prayed for something and it was like a no-go and then later, a year later, two years later, whatever, you said, oh, I'm so glad that God did not answer my prayer. Anybody have a story like that? I'm guessing most of you, I know that I have a whole list of stories like that. God is the Father. We are his sons or his daughters and just like any good wise father, he often knows better than we do what we need and honestly, he often knows better than we do what it is that we actually want. We think that, you know, the grass is always greener on the other side and our mind's eye and imagination. And sometimes it's like it's greener because it's astroturf. And in the summer, it's really hot and uncomfortable and you can't even walk on it with your bare feet. It's just really bad. Often he knows better. And so often he says no in mercy because he has something better for us down the road. Or maybe it's not even about you or me at all. It's something better for the world. and it's worth the cost that you have to pay or I have to pay through our suffering because the good that will come out of it for our children, for the world. I was with a mother this morning who was in tears because when she was young she had cancer As a result she became infertile through treatment And then she was watching her three beautiful daughters that they adopted out of the foster system dancing around in front of me in tears saying, if God had answered my prayer, they would not be my daughters. Sometimes God has something better in mind. If God always answered my prayers, at least yes, his involvement in my life would be limited to my imagination and my insecurity, but he has so much more for you and for me. Number nine is this, motive. Some prayers aren't answered because they are, in fact, selfishly motivated. James, in his letter to the church in Jerusalem, points out two reasons that prayers often go unanswered. One is that we don't ask. I said that last week. Unanswered prayer is a huge problem. Unasked prayer is an even greater problem. But two, we ask with wrong motives. Some of our prayers are just a spiritualized mask for worry or lust or greed or anger. Augustine wrote about some prayer as, quote, worrying in God's direction. I like that. why you pray is just as important as what you pray for. And it's not that God is like mean or a jerk or like, oh, your heart's in the wrong place. It's that often we're just not ready to receive the answer to our prayers. What we're praying for is good. It's beautiful. It's right in line with Jesus' name. But we're not there yet. We don't have the maturity or the humility or the wisdom or the judgment yet or the generosity to actually steward the answer to our prayer, at least not yet. And that leads me to reason number 10, which is relationship. Some prayers aren't answered because God himself is a greater answer than the thing we're asking for. And he wants to use our sense of need to draw us into a deeper relationship with himself. And one of my questions about prayer is, why do we have to ask for things more than once? Like, is God hard of hearing? Um, like, is he just really busy with North Korea right now? Uh, he has his hands full with Washington. Like, why, why do we have to ask over and over and over again? Why do we often wrestle with God? There's a question I've been asking God about my life for, I think, three years now, and I still don't have an answer. Why, why is that? Why do I have to wrestle and pray month after year after decade? Well, one reason, and there are many, right? We have 15 today and it's not exhaustive. one reason is that if God were to answer every single one of our prayers right away, our relationship with him, for most of us, would devolve into that of a debit card to an ATM machine rather than a child to his or her father. And what God is after more than anything is relationship. The main point of prayer isn't getting what you want from God, but is getting God himself. So that's category two, God's will. One more category, God's war. Stay with me, okay? You awake? You alive? Just stay with me, all right? God's war. One of the things we often forget living in a secular society is the reality of spiritual warfare. And in particular, I'm a pacifist. I don't even like to talk about this, but it's all over the library of Scripture. I think of that story in Daniel, I think chapter 10. It's a bizarre story. Daniel is wrestling with God in prayer and in fasting for three weeks. Heaven is silent. No answer to the prayer. Literally all he is doing for three weeks, prayer, fasting. How many of you have ever fasted for three weeks? Exactly. One of you, two of you. Well done. Please join our prayer team, all right? After you have some dinner. But three weeks when finally an angel comes to him and it's a bizarre story. He says, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I heard you the first time, but I got stuck with the Prince of Persia, which is not a bad Disney movie from a few years ago. it's a malevolent spiritual being with power and authority over the nation of Persia. And he was wrestling in some kind of a spiritual war with this other creature. And he got hung up for a few weeks. Yeah, factor that into your prayer life. But just think about that. However you read that story, sometimes unanswered prayer has nothing to do with God or nothing to do with human beings at all, but with spiritual beings. The cliche is God answers every prayer one of three ways. Yes, no, we're not yet. Ah, life is a lot more complex than that. What if God says, yes, absolutely, but then the prince of Persia or the prince of like southeast Portland, because we know there's one over there, you know? Right, Gerald? Like says, absolutely not. And there's a conflict. There's a back and forth. There's a war. What if a human being says, no, absolutely not? There's a war on. So reason number 11 is satanic opposition. Some prayers aren't answered because God's will is being directly contradicted by, quote, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. That's a line from Paul's letter to Ephesus, quote, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. Notice it's not just a full frontal assault, but his schemes. He's smarter than that. For our struggle, our war, our fight, our conflict is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. One of the reasons that it's so tragic that in a secular society and in a secularized church in that society, we've lost sight in Satan. We think that's just so. He's out of a fairy tale. What a ridiculous thing. You saying that you actually believe in Satan? Yes, I believe that evil is personified and real. and it's more than, oh, we don't have enough education or, oh, we don't have enough access to this, that, or the other. I believe that there are malevolent spiritual beings at work all over the universe. And what happens is if you don't have Satan in your worldview, then who becomes Satan? Other people. Your boss, your spouse, the politician of choice, so-and-so. People become Satan in your mind's eye because we have to have an outlet to vent all of our anger at the injustice and oppression in the world onto. And if you don't have Satan, it becomes people. We need to get back to this worldview. And notice, this doesn't mean that we have to go out tonight and start screaming at demons on the street or whatever. All you are told to do here is to stand. You are not told to pick a fight. You're not told to map out territory or anything like that. In fact, there are warnings against that in the New Testament. You are just told to stand. Think about Jesus in the desert. He prays, he quotes the Bible, and he says no. And then he does it again. Prays, quotes the Bible, says no. Then he does it again. Prays, quotes the Bible, says no to the tempter. That said, number 12 on that same note is this, faith. Some prayers aren't answered because we just don't believe they will be. right the bible has so much to say about faith jesus in particular has a ton for example matthew 21 if you believe you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer notice that is conditional if you believe you will receive if often you know if we start our prayers with like three or four disclaimers it's like okay god before we pray for healing for you know sarah we just want to say your will be done. And if you don't want to heal her, that's okay. And we trust you no matter what. And if we're off or if we're missing something and blah, and it's like five minutes later, then we're like, so bless her, please. I love the heart posture in a sense, but where is the faith? Like when we pray for healing, often we ask family members to step aside because family members often have the lowest amount of faith. And often we ask a child to step in Or a total stranger to step in with no emotional baggage who is full of faith in the healing power of God. And when I say faith, remember, I don't hear that in like a prosperity gospel, like believing that God will do what you want. That's not what faith is. Faith is taking God at his word. Saying, God, you said this. I believe it. I entrust my life to you in this area. That's faith. Praying faith. And don't stop. Number 13, perseverance. Some prayers just haven't been answered yet. Whether your prayers are being resisted by mysterious spiritual forces, by stubborn people, or even by God himself, don't give up. It could be that Michael is off fighting the prince of Persia, or your motivation is all wrong, or God has something better for you, or he's teaching you something. Or it could be like a combination. It could be like, oh, it's satanic, and God is teaching you something, and you're not ready yet. Like it could be option three, four, and seven together. You have no idea. We rarely know why our prayers go unanswered. The point is, a delay is not necessarily denial. There are all sorts of reasons for unanswered prayer. God saying no is just one out of many. So until you know for sure, God himself is saying no, and not just no for now, but no for good, and stop asking me for that. until you know for sure, keep at it. In the language of Jesus, keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. Jesus told them this parable to say that people should always pray and not lose heart, end quote. Luke chapter, I think, 18, but I'm not positive. Don't stop. On that note, reason number 14 is sin. Some prayers aren't answered because of areas of disobedience in our lives. Take a look right here at Psalm 66. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. Often, God does not answer our prayers, not because he's a jerk, we're not holy enough necessarily, but in mercy to force you and me to deal with sin in our own life. Because as I said earlier, often we're just not ready to receive the answer to our prayers. And that, by the way, is the beauty of unanswered prayer. I notice sometimes in my own life when I pray for something over a long period of time, whether it's three weeks or three months or three years or three decades, when I pray for something over a long period of time, often my heart posture changes, right? Because it exposes, oh, actually, this is rooted in worry for me or in ambition or in greed or my emotional well-being is in, I want to buy a house or I want my book to do well or something other than Jesus of Nazareth. And the unanswered prayer exposes that. And often what happens is actually over time, my prayer starts to change because I realize, oh, I'm praying for this. It's not a bad thing, but it's not really in Jesus' name. An even better thing would be to pray for, you fill in the blank. Sometimes the most loving thing God can do is not answer your prayer. And finally, really fast, number 15 is this, justice. Some prayers aren't answered because of our disregard for the needs of others in our communities and in other nations too. There's a haunting line on Isaiah the prophet. Just listen to this. It's the edited version. It's much longer, actually. Go look it up. Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen? To share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter. When you see the naked, to clothe them and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood. Then you will call, that can be translated pray, and the Lord will answer your prayer. You will cry for help and he will say, here I am. Meaning, after you deal with the injustice in your city and in your world, then I will answer your prayer. Wow what a fitting line for a wealthy city in a very poor world So there you have it 15 reasons why prayer goes unanswered Now before we end, please hear my heart behind tonight. It's not to decrease your faith. So if you walk away thinking, oh wow, that's a lot of reasons. Like the odds of my prayer getting through are like, there's like I have a 1 in 15 chance or something like that. All right. Please, that's not my heart at all. My heart is not to decrease your faith. I want to help you understand unanswered prayer, because at best, the end result is you're scratching your head thinking, what the heck, God? And at worst, it's a crisis of faith or a loss of faith or anger or this, that or the other. I just want to help you understand. And honestly, I hope to increase your faith and your prayer life. None of this like, well, God either says yes or no or not yet. Well, no, it's way more complex than that. Don't stop. Pray and keep at it about the huge things in the world and in the city and about the little things. One of the questions I've been thinking about the last few weeks is, you know, like what things do I just not pray for? Like the parking spot. Really? Do we pray for a parking spot? I'm with people and they pray for a parking spot. Really? You really want to bother the king of the universe? You should be riding your bike anyway. Do you want to pray for that? But Greg makes this great point. Why pray for small things? One, because we can. We have the ear of the Father. Two, because God might just say yes. Here's a parking spot. That's not bad. Three, because people who pray about the little things, for the most part, are the most grateful people. Have you started to notice this yet? People that pray about the little things, who pray for a parking spot or like a good, I don't know, like stupid little things, often are the most grateful people I know because they see everything as an answer to prayer. They're like, a cup of coffee, God is so good. Then they wake up in the morning, it's sunny. It's August, you know. God is so good. It's like everything is an answer to prayer. And whether it was from God, like there was a miracle in the heavens and it was like a tornado was en route to Portland and God was like, no, sunny day, 82 degrees. Or whether it was just like, you know, summer. Either way, they see it as a gift from the Father. That's really not a bad way to live. If you're going to err on the side of praying too much or not enough about small things or not, which side should you err on? Yeah, I'm guessing error on the side of too much prayer about things that don't really matter that much in the long run. Why? Because prayer, once again, is just life with the Father. Now, that said, to end, that's fine, but how do we live? Most of you are great tonight, and it's a beautiful sunny day. Some of you are here, and you are just living in the reality of unanswered prayer. How do you live in that tension between the promise of Jesus and the reality of disappointment, heartache, regret, confusion, doubt, what the heck, God? There's a lot, but I think the short answer is an ancient form of prayer that we call lament. There's a collection of ancient Hebrew prayers in the Bible called Psalms. In fact, turn there. We'll end in Psalm 13. And the Psalms, there's 150, are essentially the prayer book of Scripture. The Psalms are there to teach you and me how to pray. And guess how many of the Psalms are lament? Anybody know? Yeah, the majority, more than the majority, over two-thirds of the Psalms are lament. So Ziggy has been dreaming about writing a worship record of all lament songs because we did the math and realized that less than 1% of modern worship music is in the category of lament. Over two-thirds of the Psalms are in the category of lament. Do you see a problem? Let me just read to you one example, Psalm 13. How long, Lord? notice there's no like our father in heaven there's no thank you there's no breathing prayer to wake up with your cup of coffee how long lord will you forget me forever 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 how long will my enemy triumph over me look on me answer me lord my god give light to my eyes where I will sleep in death. My enemy will say, I've overcome him. My foes will rejoice when I fall. But I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord's praise for he has been good to me. That phrase, how long, I think it's a shout, is used over 20 times in the Psalms alone. It is a visceral gut ache over unanswered prayer. It is an expression of lament, of faith and of doubt, of hope and of despair, of frustrated longing over the this isn't how it's supposed to be-ness of life, this side of Jesus' return. And it's in the Bible. And it's there as a template for how you and I are to pray. One of the reasons I love the Bible is because it's brutally honest about the human condition. If this thing is propaganda, it's the worst propaganda ever. It's full of doubt and anger and violence and sin and mistake after mistake after mistake and the mercy of the Father on every single page. And one of the things that you learn from prayers all over the Bible, not just in the Psalms, is that prayer isn't a place to be good. It's a place to be honest. A lot of us think prayer is boring. That's because what we do is not actually prayer. We pretend. Prayer is when you leak out of your soul with the edit button off and you vent it all to God and you pound the chest of your father in love and confusion. That is prayer. And you meet God in the place of pain. So our practice for the coming week is lament. There are a few exercises at practicingtheway.org. One is praying the Psalms. Two is writing your own Psalm. in particular if you're a poet. Three is journaling. Pick one or two and give it a shot in the coming week. I read one scholar recently who said that the Lament Psalms are there to teach you and me how to complain to God. It's not bad. But it's more than just complain. It's to meet God in your complaint. Lament is at its best when you vent everything that's in you with no edit button, no filter, the good, the bad, and the ugly, doubt and faith, anger, trust, all of it. You vent it up to God, but not in this like millennial microaggression, like anger, not that, but in brutal honesty with your father and you release it into your father's hands and you trust him and his good intentions toward you. That's why not all, but almost all of the lament psalms, start, doubt, anger, confusion, a question, and end with worship. Because the art form of lament, when it's done well, isn't just whining to God, but it's worshiping. So that's how I want to end today. Let's stand together and invite the Holy Spirit. You know, we did this next part this morning, and honestly, it was just really awkward. Not going to lie. Like, we don't really know how to lament in America and at Bridgetown. And even if we actually know how to lament, it's not really very fun. I'd rather, like, go eat salt and straw than lament tonight. And not all of you are in that place. So I think right now, the invitation is to let everything that's deep inside you out to God. If that's gratitude, if that's praise, if that's faith, let all of that out, God, to God. If that's anger, if that's confusion, if that's doubt, if it's what the heck and where are you, let all of that out and meet God in the place of pain. John Mark made a great point We've lost the art of honest prayer We think prayer is a place to be good, polished To have our theology straight But the Psalms teach us that prayer is actually a place to be brutally honest And meet God in our pain So to end let's take some time to talk with the Holy Spirit about the unanswered prayers you're carrying right now. Start by taking a few deep breaths with me. Become aware of God's presence and when you're ready I want you to ask yourself what's an unanswered prayer I'm carrying? I'll give you 20 seconds here to name it. Here's the invitation. Tell God exactly how you feel about it. God can handle your honesty. I'll give you another few seconds for this. And now, even without answers, release this into your Father's hands. Will you trust that He is good and His intentions towards you are good? If so, I'll invite you to take a few moments and release that to Him. Maybe even picture handing it to Him. or laying it at the foot of the cross. I'll do just a few more seconds here, and then close with a prayer. Father, even in the midst of our unanswered prayers, confusion and pain, help us to trust you more deeply help us experience your love in deeper ways shape us and form us into those who can steward the answers to our prayers and in the highs and lows mountains and valleys help us to always cling to you Amen Thanks for listening. This podcast is from Practice in the Way. We develop resources to help churches and small groups apprentice in the way of Jesus. Thanks to Little Thoughts for our show notes. We're a crowdfunded nonprofit, so everything we make is completely free because it's already been paid for by The Circle, our community of monthly givers. Special thanks today goes to Matthew from Fulton, California. Cree from Bismarck, North Dakota Lee from Newcastle-under-Lyme-Stratfusher Benjamin from Conroe, Texas and Amy from Wilton, New York Thank you all very much To join these friends in the circle or learn more about our resources visit practiceintheway.org Until next time May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.