Do you ever feel that your prayers go unanswered?
Do you get the sense that God is silent? Does God’s Word teach such a thing as ‘unanswered prayer’ and, if so, what causes it?
Scripture tells us that if we ask anything according to God’s will, he hears us. Does that mean there is no such thing as unanswered prayer? After all, the verse says that if we ask for anything, we can have it. So you might wonder, “Why am I not getting what I asked for?” Why and how do some prayers seem to go ‘unanswered?’
James answers this for us in his letter:
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not thin, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. – James 4:1-3
James gives us two causes here for unanswered prayer. In both of these causes, the person did not receive what they wanted from God – thus, unanswered prayer.
First Cause: You Don’t Pray
As crazy as it sounds, one reason for unanswered prayer is that we do not pray. Which means that it is not ‘unanswered prayer,’ it is actually ‘never-asked-for-in-prayer.’
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve spoken with people and they have shared frustration at God about something that he has not done for them, or is not doing. When I ask if they are praying about it, they will say, “I used to pray, but I stopped. He’s not listening anyway.” Or they might say, “Well he definitely knows this is something I want, I don’t really pray about it, but I know that he knows.”
We need to pray about things; we need to pray about all things. There is no area of your life that you should not pray about.
Second Cause: You Don’t Pray with the Right Motives
James is telling us in this passage that you do not receive what you ask for sometimes because you plan to squander what you are asking for: you plan to use it all up, and how you plan to do that is not at all in accordance with God’s will and plan.
You are praying with the wrong motives and therefore you do not receive what you are asking for. So what are some wrong motives in prayer; wrong motives that lead to unanswered prayer? Here are three wrong motives that can lead to unanswered prayer:
1. You ask for things that satisfy your desire for pleasure. God is good and he gives good and perfect gifts to his children. But if our prayers are designed to fulfill our earthly, human pleasures, then we should have no expectation that God will answer in the way we want.
2. You ask for things that satisfy your desire for comfort and convenience. If the motive of your prayer is your own comfort or convenience, then should you have an expectation that God will answer as you want? Are you praying to get out of debt so you can be free from all worry and hassle or are you praying to get out of debt so you can honor God with your resources in a more God-glorifying way? God never promises life to be comfortable and convenient. It is actually the opposite. But he is with us through all of it.
3. You ask for things to satisfy your desire for affirmation. Is this you? Do you need to be affirmed, credited, recognized for what you have done or for who you are? Lord please change my spouse so I can get what I want out of this marriage. Lord, please change my boss so I can finally be recognized as I should be. These are the prayers of those motivated to be affirmed. We should pray for relational reconciliation so that God is glorified through the reconciliation, not for our own need to be affirmed.
Examine Your Heart
There are many reasons we find ourselves thinking that God has not answered and will not answer prayer, and all of them are rooted in some kind of life about God that we have somehow believed. It is true that God can move mountains, but he only moves the mountains he wants moved. He does not move mountains so we can squander it on our own pleasures, comfort, or on our own selfish affirmation.
Before we blame God for unanswered prayer, let us first see if we have cherished iniquity in our own hearts, and confess those sinful motives to God in prayer. Lord, teach us to pray.
