Are you disappointed with prayer? Julie was. Until the bike accident two years ago she couldn’t remember the last time she had needed to see a doctor. This capable and bubbly young mom of two energetic kids, had faced the usual challenges in life, but nothing that had knocked her off her stride for long. Her prayers were usually hopeful and full of praise for the Lord’s kindness to her.
Even the first few months after the accident she managed well, stayed optimistic, and prayed that her back pain would ease. But two years in, the pain has increased, caring for her family is harder, and she is feeling like the future is bleak. One day a kindly friend asked how she was doing and offered to pray. Julie surprised herself with her blunt reply as she blurted out, “I prayed but nothing changed.” It pulled her up short, and she was left wondering where she could go from here. Had she given up on God, or worse had He given up on her?
Perhaps you know how she feels. You never expected to find yourself here. You wonder why your prayers have not been answered how you expected. You wish you knew what God is up to as you face these unwanted circumstances and can’t help but wonder if you have been abandoned at your point of deepest need. Despair mixed with a sense of failure are becoming more and more a part of your spiritual walk, and there seems no obvious way out. After all, you have prayed for a change, and none seems to have come. And without realizing it, you have, like Julie, become disappointed with prayer.
When you find yourself here, it is hard to bear, but know that you are not alone. Scripture is littered with examples of heart-felt pleading that went seemingly unanswered. You don’t have to read very far in the Psalms to find the desperate cries of the Lord’s people asking for a change in their situations. There is also the pleading of Job for answers in the midst of his anguish. And don’t forget Jesus in the garden, the place of pressing, where three times he cried out for the cup to be taken from him. Even his prayers did not bring about the change for which he was asking. Taken as stand-alone stories the outlook seems bleak.
Scripture speaks with vivid, personal stories that, on first glance, appear to offer us nothing more than the conclusion that the living God has sold us fake news about himself. Rather than being gracious and powerful, he is unwilling or incapable of answering our prayers. Sadly, Julie had slipped into that assumption and did not know where to go from there.
But these are not stand-alone stories. They are vital, precious, and pivotal parts of a larger story. As outrageous as it may sound, we need to consider the possibility that disappointment in prayer may be a vital part of the greater story of God’s gracious dealings with us, even a surprising doorway to some new experience of his grace to us in Christ. Strangely these kind of disappointments, as hard as they can be to bear, are what God uses that you might know him better, trust him more, and need other things less.
Julie’s disappointment in prayer led her on this journey. This is how she described it, “My prayers were stuck on what I was asking for. But when that seemed to fail, and God seemed to be doing nothing, I was forced to reckon more with who I was asking. It was as if the pain of unanswered prayer was preparing me go deeper into the love of Christ for me. I doubt I would have done that, or grown in my confidence in Jesus, if I had not first been so disappointed. He has used this to help me know him better.” Julie’s disappointment in prayer “not working,” for a while felt like the end of the story, but it is now a part of her story she would not want to change.
Julie’s testimony is not unusual. Many of you will have similar stories of how the Lord met you personally and powerfully in the place of disappointment and pain. It seems that God’s grace in Christ, like water, flows most quickly to the lowest places. If you are currently battling in that lower place of disappointment in prayer, please cry out to him that he would meet you there and show a fresh revelation of the sufficient grace of Jesus to you. You may be craving the grace of relief or release, which will certainly come ultimately, but right now he is near to you waiting for you to ask for the grace of renewal. Your prayers matter to him. Ask him to show you more of himself, all of what he has done for you and is doing for you in Christ, at a time when you have been tempted to believe he is doing nothing.
I Prayed and Nothing Changed
I Prayed and Nothing Changed will challenge you to be honest as you talk to God about your struggles in our messed-up world. Casey points readers to see all that God is doing, even when he seems distant, and encourages readers with specific ways we can see God at work in the silence.
