"Yet even when you do pray, your prayers are not answered, because you pray just for selfish reasons." James 4:3, CEV
Back in 1991, country singer Garth Brooks cowrote and recorded the song, "Unanswered Prayers." The lyrics center around a situation in which a man encounters his sweetheart from back in high school and introduces her to his wife (awkward!).
The man thinks back to when he had prayed so fervently for God to let him marry her-but it never happened! And now he thanks God for unanswered prayers as he looks at his wife and appreciates the lady God gave him, rather than the object of his adolescent desires.
At times in life we pray for something we don't get, then we wonder why "God didn't come through." Sometimes, like in Garth's song, it may be years later that we come to understand the reasons for God's silence or "non-answers." Sometimes we never do find that out, and it becomes a matter of us trusting that God knows what He's doing!
At times, the answers to our kids' childhood requests aren't always a resounding "Yes!" In the same way that we answer our children's requests, God's answers to our prayers may be "Yes," "No," or "Wait."
At times, we just need to keep on praying. First Thessalonians 5:17 says, "Pray without ceasing."
Sometimes, friends I know will buy a lottery ticket and feverishly pray for the tantalizing financial windfall it promises to bring-never considering the words of 1 Timothy 6:9, "Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap."
When confronted with God's "non-answer," some people encounter God's sweeping omniscience as opposed to a very limited human perspective.
In the liner notes to his 1994 album "The Hits," Brooks wrote, "Every time I sing this song it teaches me the same lesson. 'Happiness isn't about getting what you want, it's wanting what you've got.'"
That's another way of expressing that we can be satisfied with God's responses to our prayers, content in trusting that He knows and wants the best for us.
So with this in mind, we can pray, "God, I know that you know what's best for me and I can trust that you will answer my prayers according to your wisdom."
Kene Jackson is the NEFC Executive Director.
