The Fear Of God Saying No To My Prayers.

Before we get to today’s article, I just want to mention that am writing from the perspective of a man that has experienced many of the challenges of which I write…. and those spiritual battles continue daily. The articles are implications of what it means to obey the commandment to raise your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. They require some reflection and are particularly for Christians who, as Peter would say, are diligently seeking to confirm their calling and are making every effort to supplement their faith. Said more succinctly, serious Christians. If you know other believers who desire to walk more faithfully with the Lord, please forward an article to them and tell them to sign up for future articles. Thanks so much!

The Fear Of God Saying No To My Prayers.

You may have read elsewhere in my writings about the recent experience of walking with my brother and his wife after his massive heart attack and subsequent need for a heart transplant. There have been many things that I have learned about God’s work in and through people and how God truly glorifies Himself in many, many fantastic and awesome ways.

While there has been much to observe about all of the people around me and their reactions to four steady weeks of emotional and physical exhaustion, I have also been searching my own heart to learn of my God honoring or dishonoring thoughts. And I have come to realize that my prayers about the most critical and serious matters, are defective.

For example, while others seem to freely believe that God will answer their prayers in the affirmative, mine are laced with a “back door” for God’s rejection. In other words, I pray for a particular outcome, but I leave room for God to disappoint me. Sure, there are prayers that I can pray with great confidence and without wavering in belief because I know the outcome. These types of prayer are prayers based on God’s promises such as asking God to make me more holy, to become like Christ, or to help me repent more quickly of my sins. These prayers are prayers that are clearly in God’s will because He has already revealed His intention in the Bible.

However, there are the prayers for which I don’t have a clear view of God’s will and those prayers are like the ones that I have been praying such as, please keep my brother alive or dear Lord, please send my brother a new physical heart. In these prayers, I feel like I have not been fully believing that God will say yes to my pleading. What if God’s will is to take my brother to heaven?

Yet, Jesus says in in Matthew 21:21: And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

In James 1:5-8, James writes, If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Here I can see that the context is asking for wisdom, but isn’t it interesting that asking God without doubting is mentioned again?

I share this with you because I think I am praying with doubts and may be dishonoring God in my prayers. Why do I do this?

Some of this is rooted in how I handle life in general. For years I ran a Christian School and in the normal course of business there were many days of fires that needed to be put out. You may think that being in a Christian work environment is bliss, but you’re wrong. Each day brought children’s behavior issues, unhappy parents, employee issues, and financial pressures. Now in retirement, I can look back and see that the number of good days far outweighed the bad, but I always arrived at work expecting the worst things to happen. Why did I have this perspective? Well, there are Biblical reasons, such as life in a fallen world with sinful people and the commands to put on the armor of God. I did not want to be wounded by the daily disappointments and battles that might lead me to discouragement or despair.

But should I be setting expectations in my prayers to God in the same way I set expectations for the world that we live in? Will God give me a serpent if I ask Him for a fish (Luke 11:11)? Of course not!

No, I need to reset my thinking about the nature, attributes, and promises of God. First, I need to think deeply about His unbounding love for me and to do that, I need to meditate on Romans 8:31-32: What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

We find another explosive truth about God’s love for His people in illustrated in Isaiah 49:16: Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

Spurgeon writes on this verse, “No doubt part of the wonder that is concentrated in the word “Behold” is on account of the contrast with the unbelieving lament of the preceding sentence. Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” How amazed the divine mind seems to be at this wicked unbelief! The Lord’s loving word of rebuke should make us blush.

He cries, “How can I have forgotten you, when I have engraved you on the palms of My hands? How dare you doubt My constant remembrance when the memorial is carved upon My own flesh?” He keeps His promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt Him.

He never fails; He is never a dry well; He is never as a setting sun, a passing meteor, or a melting vapor; and yet we are as continually troubled with anxieties, molested with suspicions, and disturbed with fears as if our God were a mirage of the desert.”

In addition to believing the deep truth of God’s love for us, I need to believe without doubting  that:

1. God’s omniscience means that the answer to my prayer must be the wisest and best answer, even if it differs from my requested outcome.
2. God’s absolute goodness demands that I believe without doubting that His will is the most loving and kind answer to my prayer. It simply cannot be anything other.
3. God’s ways are higher than my ways and beyond my comprehension and His perspective is eternal and my perspective is temporal. There is no logical or valid reason for me to not believe that truth without doubting.
4. God’s sovereignty is absolute. He is the Creator God that chooses to give or take away and has every right to do whatsoever pleases Him.
5. He is God Almighty and therefore having the power to do whatever I ask of Him, I can and must ask without doubting how He will answer.

Now, believing all of these things to be true without doubting, I can pray to God to do the most magnificent, “mountain moving” things, without being a double minded, doubting person. But I am a practical man. I still go back to the question of what happens when God says “No” to my prayer request? Do I need to read the thousands of pages that have been written in books on prayer to get past this?

I don’t think so. Clearly, the main issue is we must believe all that we know to be true about God’s character and His ways. Doing so conditions our hearts for any outcome to a degree, but it doesn’t mean we will completely avoid disappointment when He says no to our prayer request.

Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.

God has ordained times of both sadness and joy, and through all of the seasons of our lives, there are reminders from God that we are not to be wedded to the things of this world. Understanding that, we can recover from our disappointments and as Paul wrote, we may be afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair. In all of this, God is doing a work in our hearts, making us more like Christ.

So, pray boldly, believing, and without doubting, knowing that no matter the outcome, God is working for us. Regarding my brother, somebody must have been praying without doubting because he lived long enough to receive a new heart and is now recovering at breakneck speed.

Thank you, Lord.

For further thinking on prayer, you may want to listen to Ryle’s short booklet called,  A Call To Prayer.  Although these words were penned more than 100 years ago, the need and application for today’s Christian is greater than ever.

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cherish-ephesians-6-4-presents-a-call-to-prayer-by/id1672880807

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAh2MVKU1VQjaXXgO8P1U-bBFkEMCwdYR

Thanks for checking in. See you next time.

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Last modified: November 10, 2023