At Westminster Community Church we are exploring the things Jesus is recorded to have done with His time. The first was miracles and healings. The next will be spiritual formation and prayer. We ask folk to text in their questions. A question from our discussion on miracles and healings was “why doesn’t God heal everyone?” We promised to post the answer online and to discuss it this week – so here is the blog post…
Short answer: I don’t know, but He is good.
Longer (but still incomplete) answer:
IMPORTANT NOTE: This isn’t a Masters thesis on the theology of unanswered prayer – just a starting point for discussion. There are a lot smarter folk out there than I who have written volumes on the subject, and if you like, I will gladly suggest a few to read more educated opinions.
First, let me reiterate – I don’t know. For any of us who have dealt with long-term unanswered prayer, the worst thing is to hear a neat little theory on why God isn’t giving us what we want or need. In fact, many of us are surrounded by people like Job’s three friends in the Bible, who see our suffering and want to help us figure out the secret key that is causing God not to answer so the situation can be remedied.
<Begin short personal story not shared on Sunday:>
My wife and I tried to have children for the first almost ten years of our marriage. For the first few years, we didn’t worry much, since we were busy people and figured it was stress-related, etc. after awhile we began to see doctors who told us everythign was fine. Finally, seven years into the process, we found doctors who actually found problems and my wife had surgery and eventually fertility treatments that led finally (after a few years and tens of thousands of dollars) to the birth of our twin girls.
If you’re looking for entertainment and frustration in your life, trying being a Pastor with an unanswered prayer. Many well-meaning people prayed and prophesied over our lives. Many predicted the dates of children being born that never came true. And many more attempted to diagnose our spiritual problem – maybe we hadn’t been prayed for by the right people. Maybe we had un-repented of sin in our lives. Maybe God didn’t want us to have kids. Maybe we were supposed to adopt. One nice church lady said, and I quote, “Why haven’t you guys had any kids yet? Do you need me to draw you a picture of how it works?”
All the while, God said very little. When I would pray about this aching need in our lives called “we want to have children,” God would ignore it and talk to me about other things, kind of like he did with Elijah. And I learned the depth of His love and care and kindness in ways I couldn’t any other way.
Those of us who have been through the desert of unanswered prayer (even those who are still in it) think differently, pray differently, worship differently, and love differently. There are secrets you can only find all alone out there. We have learned that God whispers through our joys, but shouts in our desperation. The only way you see God like Elijah did is to go to the desert.
I learned that God answers prayers in His time and for His purposes, not according to the prayers we pray and the formulas we use. And there are some He leaves unanswered.
<END SHORT PERSONAL STORY NOT SHARED ON SUNDAY>
The Bible doesn’t completely answer this question – the reason for that will become clear as we walk through it. But it does give us much help in understanding. There are three main reasons God doesn’t heal people or answer prayers we can discover through Scripture:
1. So that He may receive glory. A great example of this would be the death and resurrection of Lazarus or the healing of the man born blind. The disciples even asked Jesus about the man born blind – did he sin or his parents. Jesus said neither – it was so the Father could receive glory through his healing. God is shown to be good in answering and not answering prayers, because He is always good.
2. To allow the natural order of creation to take place. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but Lazarus dies again later. In fact, we ALL will die. When sin entered the world, death came upon all of us. God promises that He will one day destroy death, the last enemy, but for this period of history, He allows the cycle of life and death to continue to allow humankind opportunity to accept His offer of salvation through Jesus. So every disease will not be healed in this lifetime, because that would destroy the natural order.
3. Wrong motives or sin. This is actually the least common reason for long-term unanswered prayer, mostly because those who have been asking God for something for a long time rack their brains trying to find a reason and confess and turn from sin and get their priorities right – and sometimes God answers as soon as our hearts are on Him, not our problem. But it is mentioned in Scripture and has to be dealt with. If you have been praying for a million dollars to bless the starving in Africa and haven’t received it yet, you may check what you are doing with the ten bucks you have, as that will tell you everything you need to know about your ACTUAL priorities. But I digress.
4. He DOES answer, just not the way we want Him to. God says “no” sometimes. And He says “not yet” sometimes. And He says absolutely nothing about what we asked and tells us a bunch of other stuff sometimes (like Elijah) because our crises has put us in a listening state of mind. Sometimes we say God didn’t answer, but He always does. Eventually. Side note – I have a problem with the theology that says God always answers right away, because sometimes He is silent, and I can support that from the Bible. Sometimes He says nothing about what we are asking about, but He IS always speaking, if we care to listen.
5. I don’t know. This is the most important one of all. He is God, and I am not. So if He chooses to answer, great. If not, great. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I trust Him.
God’s ultimate goal is His purposes. In a micro sense, He wants us to know Him. Times of struggle and loss and unanswered questions allow us to see Him in ways we can’t otherwise. And most importantly of all, they give us an opportunity to show the one thing that pleases God most of all – faith. Think about it – good times take no faith. Romans says that having what we are hoping for is not faith – but believing for what we have yet to receive is. No one in the world would ever see an example of faith if we did not have any unanswered prayers. But God leaves us in our broken, twisted, sinful world, and sometimes leaves us broken and twisted so the world can see what faith is. And that is the greatest blessing of all. To be counted worthy to suffer so the world can see faith, hope, and love. Everyone who suffers in Christ finds a quiet peace in the center of it – the knowledge that He will not give us more than we can handle, and that He has seen in us a heart strong enough to love Him in spite of our suffering.
That’s a good enough starting point – now post YOUR thoughts!
