Working Through Unanswered Prayer

It can be easy to think that if God isn't answering our prayers that He isn't listening… and if He isn't listening, then there’s no point in praying. But what is the purpose of prayer? Is it to get God to conform and do what we want Him to do, or is there something more to it?

The fact that 2013 drew to an unsuccessful close and 2014 has kind-of limped into it's place, one could argue that in this respect God has switched off to my voice. 

It's easy to read Hannah's story at the beginning of 1 Samuel and think that God was really tuned into her cries and stepped in quickly to answer her request for a child; it's easy to compare ourselves to her, and to think we must be doing something drastically wrong to have reached the end of another year and STILL not have the emptiness of our womb filled with the hope and joy of a successful pregnancy. To think that maybe we have not cried hard enough, pleaded hard enough or become so despondent in our hopelessness that we are mistaken for a drunkard. But what we are not privy to, in Hannah's story, are the years prior to that one moment in the Temple. The years she, like you and me, spent crying out to God to take away the reproach of her barrenness, and to grant her the opportunity to bear a child of her own. 

It is hard to understand how to pray at times, when it seems like this one simple request is being unmet - it can have huge impact on our overall opinion of what prayer is all about. How often have I heard it said, or even said it myself, “prayer doesn't work”. In what sense is prayer “not working”? Well surely that depends on your theology of what prayer actually is. It's easy to come out with the Christian jargon, "Prayer is our way of connecting with God", or "Prayer is about laying our hopes and dreams before God in submission to His plan for our life", or "Prayer is about listening to God, as well as presenting what is on our hearts". How easily these appear to roll off the tongue, and yet how many women (and men) in the long drawn-out, no guarantee, Journey for Bubba actually feel connected to God in prayer? In the beginning, sure, we are full of hope and excited anticipation of what God is going to do in our "little family", but as the years roll by, hope diminishes and hearts become hardened.

If we were going to "keep it real", many of us can quote the verses like "Ask and you shall receive" or, "the fervent prayers of a righteous man avails much"! So when we struggle to pray we feel the added guilt of obviously not being "righteous" enough, or of not "asking in the right way" because we also know the Bible says, "You have not because you ask not, and when you do ask you ask amiss"!

I don't believe these verses are in the Bible to condemn people like us whose prayers seem to go unheard from one year to the next. I don't believe God means for us to feel that we are not righteous enough, or not holy enough, or not praying right, or any of these things, because through Jesus we are made righteous, we are made holy and a way is offered where we can approach our heavenly Father about anything at any time. The enemy would love to make us feel worthless and condemned, and he uses unanswered prayers to trick us into thinking God doesn't care. Especially in long-term struggles like trying to conceive.

Maybe the start of 2014 is the perfect opportunity for us to truly understand what prayer really is about, rather than to mistakenly start to accept the lie that "prayer doesn't work". Otherwise we might as well start to believe that conversation, in general, is pointless. 

We know that conversation "works" in the sense that it allows us to share ideas, share hopes, plans, dreams, thoughts, opinions etc... but if someone doesn't start to do what we think they should be doing, we don't suddenly decide that person doesn't listen to us, or doesn't care, because they aren't doing what we told them to do, when we have told them to do it! Yet we do this of God. Prayer should be like our conversation with God, and this involves going to Him with the disappointments and hurts, as well as with the other stuff. He cares enough to listen.... ALWAYS. Whether we recognise it, feel it, sense it, hear it or not, God always listens. To stop praying because we aren't being given the answer we desperately seek causes resentment and bitterness to spring up between us and our Heavenly Father - causing us to feel isolated, distant and alone - as if this journey isn't isolating and lonely enough!

I wish I had the answers to give you, as to why this area of your life appears to be beyond God's hand, I wish I had the answer to my own questions too. And my understanding of prayer may be being challenged, but this is all in God's plan and I have entrusted my life into His hands. He promised to hear me, to listen when I call on Him, and He has promised He is is faithful, so as I bid farewell to a difficult 2013, I choose to hold onto God, in the hope that through 2014, whether my prayer for Bubba is answered or not, I will gain a deeper understanding of God and His conversation with me. Even if this means small steps back into His arms.

Devotions at Work - Encouragement From God

I am blessed in my work environment, in that I work for a Christian organisation, and every morning we start with devotions. Depending on who is leading it, this is either an informal discussion, or a formal teach (usually when the Boss leads it!!). When the office based team are doing it, we tend go through a book, chapter by chapter.

This morning, the Boss chose one of the passages which has been one of the foundational Scriptures for my own Journey of Faith. 1 Samuel chapter 1 which relays Hannah's struggle with TTC, and the moment she encounters God answering her prayer (I've written about Hannah in a number of posts on here, including this one, this one and this one)!

Now, I have never spoken to him about it... the most I had to tell him was a couple of weeks ago when both me and my colleague who are both working on a major project due for the beginning of July were facing operations at the same time (for different reasons). We had to explain what was happening and tell him we'd come up with a contingency plan, just in case we were both off at the same time. All he knows is that I am facing an Op for Gynea reasons!! No detail!!! It wouldn't take a genius to work it out though... I'm married, of child-bearing age (just), facing an operation and childless!!! So, to me at least, it is kinda obvious there may be an issue!!

So, if he doesn't know about my Journey for Bubba, God obviously laid it on his heart to bring it to the Staff Devotions for a reason. And as we read around, I was struck by the relevance of 'my' verses. So, I'm going to share a couple of them with you, which I ended up reading as the group read "around the table":

V12: As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth.

OK, so there's nothing glaringly obvious in that verse... I'm not sure there's really anything to observe about my mouth... but God observes when I talk with Him, and hears what I say, even when others are completely oblivious to my praying.

V17: Then Eli answered, "Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to Him." 

V27: [Hannah said to Eli] "For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to Him."

Both of these verses are INCREDIBLY relevant and on-point!!! Of all the verses I could have ended up reading within the group - these are the two which are so significant in terms of where I am at and my Journey for Bubba. The first one - is the high priest telling Hannah her prayer has been answered, even before she and her Hubby got together a few days later.

The second verse is a few years later, after the child has been conceived, born, and weened and Hannah confirms that the Lord indeed had heard her heart-cry, which the High Priest confirmed to her, and now here she was a living testimony saying almost word-for-word, exactly what Eli had said to her.

This, for me, is being added to my faith arsenal... that the Lord has indeed heard me, and will grant my petition made to Him, so that in the years to come I will proclaim as Hannah before me, "For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to Him."

More Lessons From Scripture: Husbands and Wives

I love Hubby to pieces, but at the moment, he is struggling in his walk with the Lord, to the point where to even pray for me when I ask him, he doesn't feel he is in a place to do that. This makes it really difficult for me, as I read time-and-time again of Christian couples who prayed together and saw God answer their prayers for a child.

I totally believe that God wants this for Christian marriages. I fully believe that a Christ-centered marriage has a strength and a depth between a husband and wife, which other couples miss. And so for me to be in this situation - I have found this Journey for Bubba that much harder. All I would like, is for Hubby and I to pray together. 

This last Sunday, though, God spoke to me so clearly about this situation, that He has set at ease the stress and pressure I have been feeling in my heart. He is so awesome like that. For a while, because I have been praying for Hubby, and seeing only slight glimpses of the answer I desperately seek, it becomes easy to think that God isn't listening. But He sent two women to speak to me at Church - one had a vision of me seeing my prayers added to the bowl of incense which is poured out before the throne of the Lord, as described in Revelation 5:8: ...and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, and Revelation 8:3-4: He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand. The second lady spoke of how the Lord had placed a connection in her spirit to pray for me for breakthrough. She has offered to meet with me specifically to pray for the strongholds which are preventing the breakthrough I need, although she has no idea what these are. I immediately knew this was relating to Hubby, and also for my Journey for Bubba. 

But even before these two women spoke to me, God had already spoken His encouragement to me through my study of the women of the Bible who struggled to conceive. 

So keeping in mind the fact that I felt as though I don't have the prayerful support of Hubby, and have felt as though I was trying to stand strong and fight this battle alone... I started to remind God of how important husbands were to the "barren" women in the Bible (you know them ones when you try to tell God about His own story!):

• Sarah, as the woman married to Abraham, was told via her husband she would conceive - You, Lord, spoke to Abraham FIRST... she overheard You and laughed!
• Rebekkah conceived after her husband pleaded with You in prayer on her behalf. I don't know what she may or may not have said to him but You Lord, listened to her husband and she conceived.
• Then Elizabeth wasn't even privy to the conversation You had with her husband, Zachariah because he was in the Most Holy Place and then was struck dumb and couldn't relate any of what You, Lord, had told him! 

You see, God, do You see how important it is for the husband to be in the journey with his wife! Do You see what You have done through these marriages, because I do - I see exactly how important it is for the wife to have the spiritual support of her husband!!

Point made, rant over!!!!

The Lord, graciously and calmly, pointed me to Hannah:

• She spoke to the Lord DIRECTLY as she prayed ON HER OWN at the Temple. Elkanah was a Godly man, in that he made the annual pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem when required, providing offering for himself and his family, but in response to Hannah's heart-cry, he gave her a very human - very manly - response, when he said to his wife "Am I not better to you than 10 sons" (1 Samuel:1:8). He didn't connect with her on a spiritual level, he didn't appear to have the same level of faith in God's healing power to pray and intercede on Hannah's behalf or to join Hannah when she went to the Temple to pray. Hannah had to deal with her anguish, her grief alone. She knew the only way to be heard, as she desired to have a child of her own, was to seek the Lord directly, which is when we read of the vow she made to God. She was alone in this moment. Yet the Lord was so close to her in that moment. 
• The other woman was Rachel. She was the wife of Jacob, who became the Father of twelve sons, the one whom the nation of Israel is named after. But at the time, she was barren, regardless of how much she tried to have a child, and she became human in her responses, saying to her husband, "give me a child or else I will die" (Genesis 30:1). We read of poor Rachel's plight as she watches her maid, her rival-wife-sister, her sister's maid all conceiving lots of wonderful healthy babies for her husband, Jacob. we can share her anguish as child 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 is born, and each time, she is still waiting, still childless, still barren. We don't know how Jacob supported his wife through this, we don't know if he interceded on her behalf. We know he got angry with her (Genesis 30:2), maybe felt helpless on her behalf? But we do know that Rachel prayed. Although we don't know the exact words she spoke, as with Hannah, we do know that God listened to HER, remembered HER and opened her womb (Genesis 30:22).

Point made, I was silenced!

There may be wives out there who don't have the full spiritual support of their husbands, not just temporarily, but on a permanent basis, as there are women who are married to non-Christian men. Be encouraged that God is as tuned in to your prayers, ad He is to the prayers of a Christian husband, or to the prayers of a husband and wife standing together in prayer. I would encourage you to ask the Lord to bring you a prayer partner who will pray with you for the child you long to conceive, because I know that there is strength in praying with someone, "...if two of you agree on earth, concerning anything they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven" (Matthew 18:19). But don't lose heart that your prayers alone are in vain, because the Lord has promised to hear those who call on His name. And just as He heard the prayers of Rachel and Hannah - He hears your prayers too. Be encouraged, and don't give up. The journey isn't over yet, you are not barren, you are fruitful and one day, the Lord will bring to bear the fruit of your womb. The fruit of my womb.