What Does It Mean When Your Prayers Aren’t Answered?

What happens when you have faith but your prayers aren’t answered like you envision? In light of this past weekend’s gospel, I feel called to vulnerably share my struggle with part of this gospel reading, and to share to where God has led me through it up to this point (though I know He still has lots more to teach me about it). 😉

And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”  The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

-Luke 17:5-6 (NABRE)

It sounds like if we have faith, we can go around uprooting trees. Can you imagine? This verse sounds like the best news ever until you find yourself in a situation where you think you have faith, you pray for something specific, and you still don’t get it- whether it be an intention for yourself or for someone else. How do you process that? It’s frustrating. From experience, I can say that not getting what you prayed for can then seem like one of two possibilities- either you don’t have faith, or these words aren’t actually true. Well, we know the word of God is true, so it can’t be that, but in my experience, the enemy can really start to creep in through those doubts when we don’t get something for which we prayed.

For me, I’ve always believed that God could heal me, and I’ve truly expected Him to heal me, but that hasn’t happened yet. I’ve felt like I have faith because I believe in Him, I know He can heal, I know nothing is impossible for Him, I know He is goodness, and I know He hears my prayers. But still, no physical healing yet- either miraculous or progressive. Where does this leave me? Honestly, it left me in a place of great internal struggle for many years. People would quote this verse to me, saying that if I had faith I would’ve been healed. It’s never fun to be blamed like that, especially when it’s something out of your control! There were times I almost wished that I could point out something I was doing “wrong,” like not having faith, so I could do something about that and change my circumstances. Ah, the allure of control, stemming from pride.

Even if your life has gone fairly smoothly, I would imagine most of us have lost someone in our lives that we prayed not to lose- either someone who died of cancer or another illness “too soon,” or someone who is still alive but isn’t in our lives any longer. These pains are real, especially when the timeline of the loss doesn’t make sense in our limited human capacity. We can easily think that good people should have the longest, fullest lives either because “they deserve it” or because “surely God would want them here doing good work longer.” There goes the modes of control and pride again, thinking we know better than God. Isn’t it amazing how quickly we can cling to control? I know from experience. Talk about a source of anxiety…

Going back to the scripture verse, what does it mean for the tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea? That’s the key. God moves mountains (or in this case, trees), but in His way, in His timing, and according to His will.

I had to realize that my having an uncomfortable response to this verse stemmed from 2 things: my not understanding it, and my pride getting in the way. I used to think I didn’t struggle with pride all that much (HAHA), but my pride is on exhibit every time I think I know the best outcome of a situation. I didn’t see it as pride for a long time because what I was asking for was something good, something that He wants for us- health. But pride is always behind trying to take control of what can only be God’s to orchestrate. We don’t always get to understand His reasons, and that’s okay. Those are for Him to know, for Him to manage.

God can still be uprooting trees even if that doesn’t match our expectation of what uprooting trees will/should look like. That was the key for me. I wanted Him to uproot a certain tree in a certain way, so when that didn’t happen, I thought nothing was happening. I couldn’t see what He was really up to because of my limited human understanding.

Looking back while still in the midst of the mess, I can reflect on some very powerful things from my life. God’s uprooting trees in powerful ways in my life– via how much closer I’m growing to Him, and via how I’m able to share that journey with others in both this blog and in the talks I give. He’s uprooting trees by sustaining me through the unthinkable physical/medical issues. I’m in a tremendous amount of muscular and nerve pain all the time, I live with a constant headache, I’m up most of the night vomiting every night, I don’t get enough sleep, I can’t do a lot of things for myself, etc. YET, I’m still doing medical research, writing a blog, giving numerous talks, etc. This can only be attributed to God- it could not possibly be of my own accord.

God is uprooting trees by giving me a peace and joy that doesn’t make sense on a human level amidst the suffering. He’s uprooting trees by giving me understanding I never thought I would have after so many years of struggling spiritually. He’s allowing me to experience an internal freedom that “should not” be possible considering my circumstances. If that’s not uprooting trees, I don’t know what is. There’s no where else I could get what God is doing in my life. I could not make it happen, and I couldn’t seek it out anywhere else.

He’s giving me what I need to keep going. In my humanness I often want more, I want to change things so that they are different than they currently are, but He is working with the circumstances that are. It’s very convicting for me to realize and admit that I would not be where I am spiritually today had my situation been resolved 15 or 10 or 5 years ago, or even 2 months ago. This doesn’t mean that God is prolonging my situation, but He is bringing good out of the still bad situation. I see a measure of how much I’m growing when I give talks. Someone asked me the other night if I would be where I am spiritually without everything that I’ve been through, and the answer is a firm NO! The things I share come out of the trenches and have been purified by fire (though there is still a lot of room for me to grow more). The cross is the only way to Him, as much as I/we might wish otherwise.

It’s amazing how the lenses of faith can allow us to see some of the trees God is uprooting in our lives. Look at the perseverance He is giving me. As challenging as things are, my mind can’t even fathom what my life would look like without His hand at work.

Thank you God for all the trees you are uprooting in my life, and please help me to be more aware of and grateful for how you are working in my life and in the lives of others. Amen.

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