Have you talked to someone and noticed they weren’t listening? I hate that—especially when what I am saying is important. Nothing makes you feel worse than the indication that your cares are not significant.
Sometimes we feel that way about God. Recently I’ve received a handful of emails or Facebook messages from those of you who feel like your prayers are bouncing off the walls of heaven. God doesn’t listen, you think. God doesn’t care. Then you begin to wonder if He’s even real.
I’ve had my own unanswered prayers. Some I’m grateful for—like the fact I didn’t marry the guy I had a crush on when I was fifteen. Others still break my heart—like the time God didn’t heal my grandpa when he was dying.
In the emails I receive from girls I’ve noticed a pattern. Many of you pull out a verse and use it like a trump card. Jesus says in Matthew 18:19, “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.”
Then you cross your arms in defiance and say, “I had all of my friends praying with me about this and God didn’t answer. So He must not be real.”
Now, what you are trying to do here is good. You are looking in the Bible to see what God says He will do and you’re holding Him to it (just like we talked about on Monday). Great. But there is a problem.
In most books of the Bible (Proverbs excluded) you cannot just pick one verse without consulting the verses around it and assume you know what it means. Context is everything—it’s true in all written correspondence and even in our speech. I once had a girl write to me to say my book Being a Girl Who Loves inspired her to stay in an abusive relationship because it would give her an opportunity to be more loving.
When I read that I couldn’t respond fast enough to tell her that was not the best conclusion to draw. I then encouraged her to love the person by leaving him and reporting him so he could get help. Imagine if she never wrote to me and kept getting beat up thinking it was what Jesus wanted her to do! The thought makes me sick.
We always need to read in context. Matthew 18:19 is couched between verses on church discipline and how the leadership should handle a member of the church living in habitual sin. They need to pray and come to an agreement on how to proceed. As they do God will be with them and do as they ask.
Unfortunately that verse isn’t a free pass to ask for anything we want and get it. If it was there would be far more millionaires and no more starving people. People would probably never die either. A world where everyone could pray for whatever they wanted and get it would be impossible too since someone’s prayers would most likely contradict someone else’s.
So you can’t call God a liar or non-existent because He doesn’t answer every prayer the way you want Him too. But you should still pray. Why? God invites us to.
Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
What’s the point?
Oswald Chambers says it best: “Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means for getting something for ourselves; the Bible’s idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.”
Get to know God. Pray. And trust Him to answer in the best way possible.
This is a great post, Shannon.
Everybody truly does have a need to feel that their struggles and their situations are important. One day when the person I needed to listen to me the most was not being a good listener, I found this verse in Psalm 77:1 (New English Translation)
“I will cry out to God and call for help! I will cry out to God and he will pay attention to me.”
I love that verse. It doesn’t promise that God will come in and immediately fix our situation for us and make our problems go away but it does show that He cares. He is listening and paying attention when I talk to Him. Even when we don’t feel that people are paying attention to us we can know that God DOES pay attention to our needs.
God doesn’t make promises that He won’t keep. And he didn’t promise that things in life would be easy or that we wouldn’t go through pain. But He promises to go through life trials with us and grow us and change us in the midst of hard times. For me, just knowing that He cares that I am going through a hard time is comforting.
And the ultimate promise and hope of heaven, where there won’t be any more tears or pain, gives me joy through the really rough times of life.
I love this, Shannon. One of my mentors once told me when I was struggling with my prayers to “ask God, trust God and expect His blessing.” Sometimes we just have to trust that what he is doing…or not doing…as the case may be is part of the blessing
Heidi: I LOVE that. God will pay attention to me. What a promise to stand on–thanks for sharing
Lindsey: You are so right. We have to trust God even when we cannot see what He is doing. I’ve seen tragic or frustrating things turn into blessings so many times. Great reminder. Thanks!
Thank you so much for this post! It really made me think. I had never read that verse about praying and recieving in context before and my mouth dropped open at how abused it has been! I also want to thank you for your free stuff page on your website and the article about quiet times! You’ve inspired me to skim less and study more! Are there any other verses you pray for people, besides Romans 12:2? I really like that idea since sometimes I’m not sure what to pray!
Rachelle: Isn’t it amazing how abused that verse on prayer really is? It changes your entire perspective when you know the truth!
I pray all kinds of verses for other people. Here are a few of my favorites:
Proverbs 22:1
I pray that friends and family memebers would choose a good name and not great riches and that God would grant them loving favor.
Proverbs 3:5-6. I pray that my loved ones will trust in the Lord instead of leaning on their own understanding and that they will acknowledge Him in all their ways.
Proverbs 20:24 I ask God to direct the steps of those I love.
Maybe I’ll write a blog post on this soon!
Shannon – I think writing a post on praying verses over people would be an awesome post! I would look forward to reading it
Oooh, I like those and I also would appreciate such a post! Or any post on prayer really!
Thank you so very much for posting this! I’ve been like the defiant girl. I guess I’ll have to go and look more carefully at the Word.
Sharon: I’m so glad you were encouraged by this post. I think we can all get defiant at times. Getting in the Word always helps
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