When God Says No—The Good Gift of Unanswered Prayer

I never like disagreeing with Jesus. After all, he is the Son of God, so when he takes a position on something in Scripture, I am committed to agree. I want to see things his way.

But what about his teaching on prayer in Matthew 21? He had just cursed a fig tree, and it had immediately withered. When the disciples expressed amazement, he responded:

"Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” (Matthew 21:21-22)

Why doesn’t Jesus’s teaching on prayer come with the same level of caution that I use when I teach?
Why does he make prayer sound so much like a blank check?

Does Prayer “Work”?

We read Jesus’s words in front of the fig tree and wonder what we’re missing…
“Am I doubting?”
“Is my faith lacking?”

Prayer is hard.
For many reasons, it’s the most challenging of all the spiritual disciplines.
And sometimes, it seems as if prayer just doesn't work.

In the end, we conclude that mountain-moving prayers are the jurisdiction of varsity-level Christians. We go back to our safe prayers about things that don’t matter too much.

We stuff down our doubts. We embalm our prayers with qualifiers and built-in escape hatches for a God we want to believe, but can’t quite see our way to a withered fig tree, much less a displaced mountain.

An Inescapable Assertion

If Matthew 21 were the only place Jesus made broad and sweeping promises about prayer, maybe we could overlook the assertion, but it’s all over the New Testament:

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:24)

"If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (John 15:7)

"And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” (1 John 5:14-15)

It’s an inescapable teaching that God hears and answers prayer, and John (who must have been present on the day of the withered fig tree) offers some reassurance that a “no” to my prayer is not necessarily an indictment of my faith. Am I asking “according to his will?” Am I trying to move a mountain that God doesn’t want to move?

Prayer is Relational

Reading with faith and rejecting cynicism, I am enabled to see that this requirement is not an escape hatch for God, but, instead, it’s an invitation to relationship. Do I know God and his ways well enough to ask “according to his will?”

We humans are forever looking for clarity. We want to know where the lines are and what we can expect.

God is forever looking for closeness. He wants us to believe (Mark 11:24), abide (John 15:7), and live in confidence that we have his ear—and his heart (1 John 5:14-15).

With this in mind, could it be that God intends for us to receive his no as a challenge?
A divine course correction?
An arrow pointing toward a deeper understanding of God’s nature and ways?

When what I ask for has not been given, can I take grace instead? That’s what was given to Paul in exchange for one of the most well-known unanswered prayers in the Bible:

"…a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)

Paul wanted his “thorn” removed. What he got instead was grace. So he took it.

God extends grace to you and to me, too, but sometimes we don’t see it.
We’re busy looking for something else.

Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was, apparently, not a mountain that God intended to move, because God would receive greater glory from Paul’s weakness. Paul accepted the weakness because it came from God. He was committed to receiving what God had given—and to relinquishing what God chose to withhold.

Sometimes what seems like a “no” is actually a “wait,” and so we persevere in faith. Perseverance can look like passivity, but, at times, it’s the most powerful thing we can do.

May we find grace to accept no or wait as God’s good answer and to receive, in faith, what God has given instead.