Are your prayers being answered?
Some time ago, when I was pastoring a church, our association gathered at a public swimming area at a lake for a combined baptismal service. When my time came to baptize some of the people who had accepted Jesus as their Savior, I moved out into the lake where the water was deeper in order to better accommodate the size of the people I was baptizing.
As was my custom, I spoke briefly with each of the candidates for baptism before immersing them. During one of those, someone yelled at me from the shore, “Speak up, we can’t hear you.” I laughed and turned to the baptismal candidate, and said, “That’s OK. I wasn’t talking them anyway.”
The Bible says in James 5:13-16, “Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. … The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” I believe this, and have actually seen miraculous healing through prayer. And yet, I also have observed that there are many times when prayers do not appear to be answered by God.
One of the axioms regarding unanswered prayer focuses upon God’s answer to prayer. Believers are admonished to remember that sometimes God answers “No” even when we want to hear a “Yes.” Beyond that, there are a lot of religious clichés regarding unanswered prayer, most of which may provide an answer for someone, but usually not the person who is doing the praying. Instead, human nature wants to recognize God as being loving and caring for His people, and even human fathers give whatever they can to help those in need. Why not God?
I’m sure that I don’t have the answers to the “why” questions directed toward God, any more than you do. However, I have become aware of how many prayers today are misguided and are not really directed toward God at all. Conservative churches today often end their sermons with the pastor asking the people in attendance to join him or her in prayer. However, instead of a heartfelt prayer directed toward the Almighty, too often the pastor begins a five- to 10-minute post-sermon intended to persuade someone to come forward to make a public decision for God. I don’t have any problem with those entreaties, but one should call them what they are. They are not prayers.
I also have noticed during worship services how people react while the officiant is leading in prayer. Apparently, there is no need for the song leader to be involved in the prayer, nor the choir members, nor the ushers, nor anyone else who has a job to do. Normally, these people continue to mill about and to do their thing regardless of prayer. After all, the show must go on (pardon my denigration here), and the prayer is just a part of it. Is it any wonder that people in the congregation also are wandering away from the significance of the prayer?
Chaplains now also are told that they should not end their prayers “in the name of Jesus” for fear this may offend someone. Apparently, they are to just pray and say “amen.” But to whom are the prayers directed? If you will carefully examine the prayers in the Bible, I think you will discover that the one praying didn’t care if anyone other than God heard the prayer. Public prayer is a case in point. Those prayers are carefully crafted for the occasion, but are they really directed toward God? Call me old and out-of-date, but I happen to believe that it is impossible to actually pray outside of your personal belief system and that the prayer is meaningless if it is not directed toward God. Christians shut their eyes while praying to eliminate any distraction from their heartfelt prayer to God.
Yes, I am aware that there are a lot of comforting words found in most prayers that are very important and supporting to someone who is hurting, but we need to be careful to distinguish between providing comfort and praying. At its basic meaning, prayer is a conversation between someone and God. It may seem like a one-way communication, but Christians assume that God hears meaningful and properly directed prayers by the faithful, and belief is the beginning of answered prayer.