A significant amount of my prayers have gone unanswered. I’ve always believed and hoped that God answers prayers. I have prayed many times in my life and have received answers and guidance at various times. However, I have also prayed at other times, and have not received the items I earnestly sought for. Many of my prayers have simply resulted in silence and more questions and doubts rather than in guidance, inspiration, or clarity.
During this time I was upset. I had tried to do everything I had been instructed by the world and by previous promptings. I had worked very hard and performed well during law school and had done each item recommended to make me more employable or valuable. I had worked at internships, done Moot Court Competitions, participated in the International Law Journal, and otherwise involved myself trying to increase my resume.
Internally during this time, things grew darker and darker. My prayers felt as if they never made it outside the walls of the room I was in. My life wasn’t improving and things were falling apart. It hurt a lot that I couldn’t find God anywhere during this time.
The darker things got due to unemployment and other things taking place at the time, the more insistent I became in my prayers, almost demanding that God change things or lift me and my family out of the situation. All of these prayers, petitions, and demands remained unanswered, and I eventually reached the point where I had to decide if I still believed in God, or if my past beliefs had been false for some reason.
As I wasn’t employed, I spent significant time thinking through the consequences of the paths before me. I realized then that I certainly believed in the eternal nature of the soul, and that I would only ever be fulfilled pursuing a path that at least professed a method of providing for our souls in the next life. I just couldn’t walk away from the notion that life was more than this earth alone.
God did not simply remove my problems even though I begged Him to. I learned that prayers aren’t a way for us to impose our will over God’s will. I still find myself doing this all of the time, simply letting God know the way things should be, and when I do, my prayers remain unanswered.
However, when I explain to God everything that I can see, everything that I can understand, and then tell Him based on that, this is what I think needs to happen, He is kind. He probably smiles at what I am missing still, but then, if I follow up with “and please teach me what I am missing still,” or “not my will but Thine be done,” then thoughts start come into my mind, sometimes slowly, sometimes more clearly. I learn, line upon line. I see, as the fog slowly dissipates. Rarely do I get everything at once, but I at least get something, and as I continue to seek to understand what I am missing, the light continues to grow.
I learned that for my prayers to be answered, I have to have faith in God’s omnipotence, not faith in my ‘omnipotence’. When I demand that things be a certain way, internally I am telling God that I know more than He does, and prayer and life simply don’t work that way. However, when I trust that God can see things I can’t, when I humble myself and recognize that I might need to change, then my prayers become more of a two-way communication.
In addition, I learned that I have to work for things. God is a God of progression, and He never stops working for our benefit. If I am to become like God and fulfill the purpose of this life, I have to learn how to work. I have to learn how to create. I have to learn how to overcome an obstacle in front of me. In essence, I have to learn what faith really entails.
Faith is belief coupled with actions. Praying in faith means that I open my heart to God in belief, with a willingness to work to accomplish what I am told. To me, I learned that faith didn’t mean simply asking, demanding, or repeatedly praying. Rather, faith meant being willing to work to obtain what I was asking for. When I lacked the willingness to work for what I prayed for, I lacked faith.
Now, when I pray for rain to help Utah’s drought, or for peace in the world, or for a child who is struggling, I stop and ask myself “What am I willing to do to help achieve that?” I have come to realize that I need to be willing to work on the things I pray for. If I am not willing to do anything about what I am asking God to help with, I am not praying sincerely, as faith takes belief and work.
Even though I am beginning to see that I have to be willing to work, my prayers still often beg for God to simply solve the problem for me. Instead of seeking ways to improve myself while I was unemployed, I simply asked God to drop a job in my lap. Instead of enjoying the ‘forced’ time with my family, I complained about not having what I wanted. However, when I make myself ready and willing to work, my prayers are answered far more than when I simply ask God to magically change things, as the willingness to work is an essential component of faith.
Maybe due to my young age, or maybe due to my mother always praying for me, or something else, God answered that prayer in a merciful but powerful way. I went to my first meet quite behind in my homework, and something told me that I shouldn’t be there wrestling. I ignored the feeling though and wrote it off as nervousness for my first meet that season. The first match started, and internally I knew that I was doing something wrong, but I persisted. Two minutes into the match, my opponent and I ended up tripping and falling in a unique manner, and I tore the ligament in my elbow.
This ligament tear ended my entire wrestling season. As I sat in a sling, I thought of all of the things I was missing out on. I wouldn’t be able to wrestle, lift weights, play any sports, or otherwise have much fun for quite some time. At some point, I finally thought “What will I do with all of my time?”, to which God gently whispered “Homework.” He had answered my prayer and given me time to do my homework.
That wrestling experience taught me a lot of things. I learned that I had already made up my mind before even praying, and I was simply asking God to support me in the path that I chose. I didn’t ask Him what path I should pursue, I simply decided that wrestling was best for me. I exercised faith in my ‘omnipotence’ and wasn’t humble enough to listen to what God wanted for me. I was so stubborn that I ignored the warnings, and I ended up breaking an arm and tearing a ligament, all because I was certain of what I wanted.
Also, I asked God to give me something that I could do for myself. I asked Him for more time, so that I could fit everything I wanted into my life. However, I could have more time, if I simply was willing to give up the other things that I wanted. It was wrong of me to ask God for something that I could do for myself, as there is great value and growth associated with sacrifice.
Now, fast forward to a few winters ago. It was one where someone in my house was sick almost every day. Nothing too serious, but plenty of colds and the normal winter sickness. I prayed a lot that the sickness would simply be taken from our house, and yet it wasn’t. During that time of praying though, I repeatedly ignored a prompting to go out jogging and take the kids with me.
After months of praying that God would simply give me health, I finally realized that God gave me the tools to have health, and that He expected me to use them. He wasn’t going to simply take away my sickness that was the result of my not exercising, but He was willing to give me the opportunity to exercise with my kids so that we could be healthy. Yes, I learned that I need to exercise, or work, to have the health, or things, I pray for.
In addition to health, I had been praying for answers about my children over the last year or so, as certain ones were struggling with different things. I was asking God to change them, to make things better for them, to remove the problems, etc. But, things kept getting worse. They weren’t improving, and my prayers weren’t helping.
Because I was resistant to change, the answer never came through. Because I wanted to continue on and be who I wanted to be, my prayers remained unanswered. Once I decided to let go of my pride and let go of my commitment to never have a dog, the answers became accessible and clear. I had to work to change, a lot, to let a dog into our home. I wasn’t a dog person, but when I finally was humble enough to recognize that I could be a better person by following what God had for me, I was able to start the work of changing my heart, which, for me, is a long process as I tend to be rather stubborn.
In sum, my unanswered prayers taught me that I need to trust in what God can see, not in what I see or feel, that I need to sacrifice things of value to me to obtain what God has to give, that I need to be willing to work rather than just pray for a miracle, and that I need to realize that my distance from God isn’t a problem with God, it is a problem with me that I need to be willing to fix.
In other words, I learned that a major purpose of prayer is about changing me. Prayer isn’t to change everything around me to make it fit my preferences. When I’m not willing to change or admit that God sees more than I do, I don’t get any answers, and my prayers are of no effect. When I’m not willing to exercise true faith by being willing to act on what I’m told, my prayers aren’t as effective as they could be.
I think of this often as I listen to people describe the darkness or confusion they may feel. Many of us struggle to understand everything that takes place in this world, that takes place in our church, or that takes place in our own lives or the lives of others. Too often, we blame the world, our church, others, or even God for things, and we lose faith. Too little, I learn over and over again, do I seek to recognize how my own blindness, my own desires, or my own problems cause the silence to exist or cause my prayers to remain ineffective.
Our answers to our prayers and questions often aren’t the things we want to hear. If we want an understanding of truth, we have to be willing to change a lot about our life. If we want health, we have to be willing to live a healthy lifestyle. If we want answers, we have to be willing to set aside our own thoughts, feelings, knowledge, and desires to receive the items that God has for us.
Ultimately, whether we are praying people or not, we can only progress when we become humble and open to the fact that there are other potentials or ways to do things. We each have the potential to change the world, for good, and we can do that by changing things inside to better align with the truths around us. The more we can be open to change and truth, the more we can start to influence and change the world around us.
At Believe, we work to promote the power of each individual to change the world, for good. That process involves change for each of us, and change can be greatly facilitated by interacting with others. At Believe, we would love to have you join our community
of people who are working to progress, improve, and help shape the world, for good.
