Unwanted Answers to Prayer

November 7, 2010

Rather than focus on a specific scripture passage, the class worked through the concept of unanswered prayer. Actually, all prayers are answered, so we are really dealing with answers we don't want. To keep the perspective clear, two families were mentioned. Each family had lost a twenty-eight-year-0ld young adult in the past week or two. How do we reconcile such events with a God who invites us to ask largely, and who is known as a God of love?

The class discussions ranged widely, with many perspectives offered.

God is unpredictable, but not unreliable. Still, God's unpredictability raises questions. Those questions often do not have answers, at least in this world.

Christianity is a relationship theology, not an answer theology. That is, we are encouraged to become children of God, to talk with Him, to respond to His Spirit. We are not promised that we will understand everything that happens. We are to depend on God's presence, not His explanations.

Spirituality for the Road, by David J. Bosch, examines this topic, and David Wilson recommends it. Bosch calls some people "hawkers." They sell a "happy-ending" religion, which answers all our questions and solves all difficulties. But "a god who provides all the answers becomes an explicable god, but ceases to be God."

Too often, in their zeal to encourage people to trust Jesus, some Christians have suggested that God will answer all life's questions. The book of Job, as one example, clearly teaches otherwise.

Albert Schweitzer [a German doctor/theologian of the twentieth century who was a "Mother Teresa" in Africa] pointed out that "Christianity does not explain everything."

A note was found in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw following the second world war. "I believe in you," wrote a Jewish man to God, "even if you've tried to dissuade me." He could not understand (any better than we can) why God allowed the persecution. But he did understand that God was not supporting the persecutors, and that God was still to be followed.

Augustine [a Christian at the time of the Roman Empire's collapse] wrote to God, "Better to find You and leave the questions unanswered than to find the answers without finding You."

A search for answers may be a search for control. When we understand something, or at least when we can explain it, we effectively put limits on it. We cannot put limits on God, so we might have guessed that we would not always understand Him or His actions.

At the same time, troubles shake any relationship. Can we trust that God really wants our best when we are in the middle of suffering? This depends somewhat on how close the relationship was before the difficulties arose.

Because we have a relationship with God, we know that He doesn't make bad things happen. We also know that He is troubled by things that are wrong. He is not impotent, but He doesn't always act.

We can be honest with God. [We might as well be; He already knows how we feel!] Even if we are angry, we can still trust that God is at work. God is not looking for passive partners; the Psalms, or Jeremiah 20, give us examples of people who do not like what is happening in their lives, but still believe that God is God. Even among humans, hiding our negative feelings does not build a stronger relationship; being honest may be the essence of communication.