Are unanswered prayers really one of God’s greatest gifts? A famous poet once wrote that they were. One of the criticisms of Christianity is that God doesn’t hear prayers. In this lesson of Not Sorry – Apologetics: Why Doesn’t He Answer My Prayers, we’ll look and see what God really does.
First, the truth that God does hear our prayer is peppered throughout the Bible. The question is really what does God do with those prayers and why does it seem as though he doesn’t answer them. There are three points to consider. God can’t answer yes to all of our prayers. We don’t know the future. Finally, we don’t even know what we want.
Consider Jesus’ time the Garden of Gethsemane. He was praying to God two prayers. One was that the cup of suffering would be taken from him. The other prayer was that God the Father’s will be done. Both of those prayers could not have been answered and still have the sinners of the world saved from an eternity in hell. There are times that our prayers can’t be answered the way we would like them to be answered.
There are two more points. The author of Prepared to Answer shared a story of a Father who stood next to his sons casket and said to him, “God took my son when I was still his hero.” What did the prayers of the father of that child sound like in the days, weeks, and months before that moment? God knew what was best in that family even though it was not what we would have chosen. We don’t know the future. God not only knows the future, but he knows how best to work it out for his children.
Finally, what do you want? Do you want to be bigger, faster, stronger, better looking? The truth is that we think that we know what we want, but we don’t really. All that we know for certain is that we want to be close to God. The church father, Augustine, wrote in the 4th century, “Lord, you made us for yourself. Our hearts cannot rest until they rest in you.”
Want to hear more? Watch this Sunday’s lesson from our series, Not Sorry – Apologetics: Why Doesn’t He Answer My Prayers
Please click HERE for the Bible class slides.