While there are many dimensions to prayer beyond asking God for things, asking God for His help is still a very crucial, foundational part of prayer. It’s both a simple and a complicated dynamic at once. It’s simple that God loves us, wants to help us, and that we can ask Him for our various needs and wants. What makes it complicated? Well, God doesn’t always say “yes” and it’s not always clear why.
There are many reasons why God might not grant a given request, and we often aren’t privy to His reasoning. Garth Brooks once wrote a song called “Unanswered Prayers” about how grateful he was that God didn’t answer a prayer for a relationship to work out because it allowed him to meet his wife instead. We all know some story like that, where God withholds something we ask for so He can give us something better. Such stories comfort us. Sometimes, though, it’s not so clear. God’s perspective on the world is far more complicated than ours, and sometimes things genuinely have to turn out worse for us in order for the big picture to work out. We may never know why, despite hours on our knees for a worthy cause, the thing we prayed for was not accomplished. This is where faith comes in. Asking is itself a form of faith. When we’ve been through a string of unanswered prayers with no clear reason why, it takes a good deal of faith to keep praying. It’s human nature to read God’s silence as a sign that He doesn’t care, even if in the long run we may find that His silence saved us. Whenever we ask God for anything, we are affirming that He not only has the power but the inclination to help. I’ve seen a lot of people get discouraged, or even leave the faith, over unanswered prayers. Their hurt and feelings of rejection are real, and I get where they’re coming from. They’ve been rejected (or so it feels) and don’t want their hearts broken again. In some cases, the unanswered prayer has led them to believe that God doesn’t exist. For those who struggle with this, I would like to suggest, very gently, that they keep up the exercise of asking and pay attention to what they’re asking for. As humans, we’re not always good at figuring out what we need, and sometimes not even what we want. We certainly don’t always think through the implications of what would actually happen if we got everything we asked for. Examining our requests to God is an interesting way of clarifying what we think we want and need. When one of my friends was dying, a group of women from his church was praying for him to live. He stayed alive, all right, but in miserable physical conditions. As soon as they started praying for God to do what was best for him instead, he died. The first prayer reflected the desires of those praying to keep him around, but what he really needed was rest after a long life well-lived. This distinction between “I want” and “I need” is so well-understood even in secular cultures, it forms the backbone of many stories, especially those told through music. If you pay close attention to most of these, you’ll always hear an “I Want” speech or song early on. Whether it’s Romeo sighing for the girl he likes who went into a convent instead of accepting his affections, the old man from Up grieving his wife’s unfulfilled dreams of adventure in South America, Simba singing about being king someday, or whatever, this moment expresses what the hero thinks they want. By the end of the story, they may get it (Simba becomes king)--or they may get something they need more (the old man from Up gets to South America, but the Boy Scout who accidentally joins him on the trip becomes more important to him than his original goal), or be tragically defeated (Romeo and his new love Juliet die after a mere three days of marriage). As you live your life, consider that what you think you want may not be what you need. There may be many reversals before you discover what blessings God actually has in store for you. The journey of prayer is what keeps you from falling into the “tragically defeated” category. As long as you persist in prayer, God will keep leading you closer and closer to what you really need. To get really meta about this, the musical Godspell is based on the gospel of Matthew, making Jesus the main character. What’s His “I Want” song? “God Save the People.” By the end of the musical, He accomplishes this want through His death and resurrection. The rest of our stories are subplots in this big one--all the requests of ours that God accepts and denies are ultimately done so based on the salvation of ourselves and of those around us. As long as we trust in that and do not give up hope, we will be victorious in the end. Meanwhile, life goes on, and we pray for our daily bread knowing that while salvation is the big need, God cares about our wants, too. He may not always be able to accommodate them, but He loves us enough to try. Every once in a while, God shows His tender affection by granting even our silly desires, just to say He loves us. He doesn’t do this all the time, but just enough to show His care for us. Submitting our wants to God’s divine wisdom purifies them, refines them, and brings them closer to what we really need. The more our wants and needs align, the more we will see God’s power working through our prayers.
2 Comments
Lidia Baciu
11/13/2020 09:54:36 am
Thanks elder Jillian. This it was I needed today. ! Loved it!
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Charles Johnson
11/13/2020 11:36:29 am
Wise words, pastor!
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AuthorJillian Lutes is the youth pastor at West Covina Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church. Archives
May 2020
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