When Prayers Go Unanswered
Full disclosure: I have prayed to God for a community since 2015. I have tried too to make it happen. Perhaps because of the peculiarity of what I want however, I have not had it, and that’s just one of things I have spent years praying for without answer.
This morning I read I Samuel 1 as if for the first time, and everything about it spoke to my core.
The chapter narrates the story of Hannah, the first of two wives. Every year, Hannah, her co-wife, and Elkanah, their husband, went to worship at Shiloh because the tabernacle of God resided there.
This yearly worship was significant for the Israelites because God commanded it, but it was more so for Hannah because it provided an outlet for her to let out her pain. You see, Hannah had no children of her own because “the Lord had closed her womb.” For years she went to Shiloh, earnestly petitioning the One who could unseal her womb.
“This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat… [until] In her ‘deep anguish’ Hannah prayed to the Lord, ‘weeping bitterly’. And [that year] she made a vow…”*
I've known the story of Hannah my entire life, but this morning it hit me with the force of fresh revelation because, for the first time ever, I saw myself in Hannah. In her I saw my unfulfilled desires. I saw the men and women who have been praying years for a baby, a job, spouse, restoration of a broken marriage, healing from cancer, an opportunity to travel outside the country, etc. And it hit me how familiar that anguish is even in the world today.
Once when Hannah was praying, Eli the priest saw her and accused her of being drunk, but she responded in verses 15 and 16 by saying, “I am a woman who is ‘deeply troubled’… I have been praying here out of my ‘great ‘anguish’ and ‘grief’.”
It is hard to ignore the force of the words used to describe her pain because it shows that Hannah wasn't experiencing momentary dissatisfaction. She was in agony about a longing gone unfulfilled — talk about hope deferred shattering the heart into smithereens.
The more I thought about her pain, the harder it was for me to let go of something I’d read earlier, “the Lord had closed her womb.” I thought, why?
Because the image of a God who closes wombs that are desperate to carry children is at a dissonance with the image of the Christian God who is acclaimed for His compassion and generosity.
How, I asked, can a compassionate God be okay — indifferent, even — with years of unfulfilled longing despite earnest pleas to Him?
Mercifully, I came across a blog post titled The Goodness of God in a Closed Womb, written by Glenn Marshall. It turns out that Glenn could relate to Hannah’s experience; that she in fact didn’t get her own Samuel.
I was angry. I didn't understand God. What did Hannah do to Him to warrant a closed womb? Was it like a generational punishment she was suffering from?
As Glenn and a bunch of other articles explained, God didn’t close Hannah’s womb — a bit of semantical gaffe there. God only allowed a closed womb for her. He permitted the delay in Hannah’s conception like He permitted Job’s misery so that, ultimately, His purpose would be fulfilled.
Because of my theological ignorance, let me quickly warn that everything I write on this topic will be peppered with my bias. Nonetheless, you might find it helpful.
In any case, Hannah’s delay is one of the most confusing bible stories I have read till date, just like Job’s losses. Whenever I try to piece together how Hannah’s barrenness or Job’s misery could fulfill God’s purpose, I come up without answers. My comfort is in the knowledge that there is a lot I don't and will never know on this earthly plain.
Nonetheless, I came across II Samuel 7 during the course of my bible study, and it shed light on God’s intentionality, which might not be obvious at first when God denies us answers to certain prayers. In II Samuel 7 you will find that David was worried about living in a house made of cedar, while the ark of God resided in a tent. As a man who loved God genuinely, David wanted to change this, but God refused him that offer. It wasn’t until the book of Chronicles (years later) that God revealed why He didn't want David to build a tabernacle for Him: because David had been a man of war, and God wanted to give that honor to a man of peace.
Like David, sometimes it take years to discover God’s why. In many cases, we may never find out. Yet faith requires that we trust God’s intentionality in His denial as we do in His favor.
In Hannah’s case, it could be that God wanted Samuel to be born when he was, not earlier or later than, so he could deliver Israel when he did.
If Samuel had been born earlier, maybe the distractions of that time would have taken him off the path of his calling. Maybe he would have been too old by the time Israel needed him.
On the other hand, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Hannah could have had other kids pending the time her womb received Samuel; also, did she specifically have to bear Samuel? To that I say I don't know. I don’t know. I don’t know. But it’s clear that God’s purpose was fulfilled in that instance.
A Season for Everything Under Heaven
Although I quiet the voice of my inquisition with rationalizations such as the one above, I often ponder on Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NASB), “There is an appointed time for everything… under heaven,” and the seeming contradiction it presents beside II Peter 3:8 (NIV), “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
If there is a time for everything under heaven, I wonder, why do we celebrate Sarah’s conception of Isaac at 90 years old? Why do we say about a woman who gets married for the first time at 68 that it is a testimony and that “God’s time is the best”?
If a day is like a thousand years before the Lord, is it possible that we (humans) and God’s perception of time is at variance? If yes, why is human existence measured in time while we are expected to hold our expectations outside of time? E.g., Habakkuk 2:3 (ESV) “For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end — it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.”
Can we really say of Sarah that her conception happened in its time when it’s common knowledge that the best time to be a parent is when one has the energy, health, and — not to mention — quality of life of their youth?
When ‘No’ Lasts a Lifetime
What becomes of the Sarahs of this world who never conceive their Issacs? The Josephs who are never acquitted from sins for which they have been wrongfully convicted? The Ruths who never find their Boazes?
It’s one thing to have desires tarry for the longest time, but it’s another entirely to live a lifetime of hope deferred.
In the poem, Harlem, Langston Hughes asks what happens to a dream deferred. “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load…”
Some people will spend a lifetime with the weight of unfulfilled desire, yet God intends even that to reveal His faithfulness. Unfortunately, some might never see it because they are buried too deep in the anguish of their longing.
I don’t intend to judge when I say that because it’s my struggle too. Amidst the grief of unanswered prayers I struggle to see God, and my emotions zig-zag between faith and resentment.
No matter, I like to believe that God understands and often I pray a simple prayer, “Please, help my unbelief.” I cannot conceive a life without love, peace, health, and wealth, but even if my lot is to be without them, Lord, help me to trust Your heart towards me.
Unmet desires make me question the use of prayer if it’ll go unanswered anyway, or when I rationalize that God could as well take the desire away so as to lessen the sting of absence/lack. In all things, God remains true. He is not a man given to lies or vindictiveness.
Closing Thoughts
I was scrolling through the streets of Instagram when I came across a quote attributed to John Piper:
“Some healing never happens in this life. Some spouses are never found. Some children are never born. But when our King returns, He will make up for every great thing that never came.”
That is a consolation, maybe not in this lifetime but at least, eventually.
I have found that the church rightly encourages faith and more faith in the face of unanswered prayers. I have to warn, however, that we must be careful not to extend false hope in the name of bolstering faith. It can lead people away from God rather than towards Him.
On a personal level however, I cannot help but ask if you can make peace with the fact that God’s will might be in the denial of that thing you want. Perhaps that is where real trust in God stems from and not in the guarantee of answered prayers.
I know I have spent the entirety of this article asking rather than answering your questions, so I’ll give you the only answer I have: a prayer.
As you work through confusion about the unanswered prayers, your questions and doubts, I pray for the God of peace to reveal Himself and His goodness to you. I pray that if it pleases Him, He will reveal the why of the wait. If not, I pray that He gives your heart rest in the knowledge that He cannot, will not, and is incapable of mismanaging your life.
For more insight into this topic, you can read this article by Greg Morse, which is sort of an ode to great things that never come and this one that speaks to wounds that never heal.
* 1 Samuel 1:7 & 11
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