03.74. The Answer To Unanswered Prayers
The Answer to Unanswered Prayers
None of these prayers was unanswered. They were not granted, but they were answered, and "No" was the answer. "No" is as truly an answer as "Yes." When a request is refused, it is as truly answered as when it is granted. Refusal may be the only answer possible to love and wisdom and truth A child may cry for a razor, and full-grown people may cry for things equally unsuitable, unsafe, and unwise. Many have lived to thank God that He withstood their agonizing entreaties at some particular time or for some particular thing that seemed indispensable.
God never refuses without reason. He knows the past, in which there may be reasons for present disqualification. Forgiven sin may disable. Moses and David were both examples of this (Deuteronomy 32:49-52; 2 Samuel 12:14). There are vessels that break on the wheel, and though another maybe made, the original is impossible. Diseases may be healed, but a lost limb cannot be restored. The Lord knows the future as well as the past. The immediate may imperil the future. The eagerness for a mess of pottage may involve the loss of an inheritance. Esau got the answer to his entreaty at dinner time. Jacob got his at dawn. God spared Hezekiah fifteen years, but he had better have gone when the Lord sent for him. The Greater Includes the Less. Delays are not denials, and it pays to wait God’s time. Moses got into Canaan, and Elijah went to heaven by a more glorious way than that of the juniper tree. No inspired prayer of faith is ever refused. "No" is never God’s last word. If the prayer seems unanswered, it is because it is lost in the glory of the answer when it comes. God may refuse the route because he knows a better, and He took Moses into Canaan by a better way and in better company. I have known other people who have had to go by way of heaven to find the answer to their prayers. He took Elijah to heaven by a much more wonderful way than that of the grave. He wanted to die, and God gave his tired servant sleep and rest, and sent him away to the hills for a holiday. That is His remedy for nerves: a change of air, a new vision, and a bigger job. Paul never had any use for juniper trees, and to him God said, "My grace is sufficient for thee," and He taught him to glory in affliction and adversity. In the experience that first sorely fried our faith, God sent help out of the darkness. Through the tears of a broken heart the vision came, and when the memorial card was sent it bore this text, which rebuked our unbelief, "He asked life of thee, and thou gayest it him, even length of days for ever and ever." So in Glory shall we find our prayers have been interpreted according to the infinite wisdom and eternal love of God our Father who bids us pray.
Unanswered yet! The prayers your lips have pleaded In agony of heart these many years? Does faith begin to fail? Is hope departing? And think you all in vain those falling tears?
Say not, the Father hath not heard your prayer, You shall have your desire - sometime - somewhere.
Unanswered yet! Though when you first presented This one petition at the Father’s Throne It seemed you could not wait the time of asking, So urgent was the heart to make it known;
Though years have passed since then, do not despair, The Lord will answer you - sometime - somewhere.
Unanswered yet! Nay, do not say ungranted, Perhaps your work is not wholly done. The work began when first your prayer was uttered, And God will finish what He has begun.
If you will keep the incense burning there, His glory you shall see - sometime - somewhere.
Unanswered yet! Faith cannot be unanswered; Her feet are firmly planted on the Rock;
Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted, Nor quails before the loudest thunder shock.
She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer, And cries, "It shall be done - sometime - somewhere."
- E. B. Browning