Unanswered prayers.

Some months ago I was talking with a fellow Christian about unanswered prayers, and he said, “Y’know, there’s really no such thing as unanswered prayer. God answers every prayer. It’s just sometimes his answer is no. But that’s an answer!”

Okay, it’s true our “unanswered prayers” might be things God has legitimately answered—with no, or “not yet.” Stuff like “Come Lord Jesus” which he will answer, eventually.

But sometimes he legitimately has not answered certain prayers. ’Cause sometimes he says he’s not gonna answer them.

Micah 3.4 ESV

Then they will cry to the LORD,

but he will not answer them;

he will hide his face from them at that time,

because they have made their deeds evil.

Generally if you’re an unrepentant evildoer—if you’re sinning, you know you’re sinning, you know Jesus would have you do otherwise, you don’t care and aren’t sorry, you fully intend to continue sinning, and nothing God says or does will move you—I don’t think it’s realistic to expect God to heed you.

It’s like when Jesus warns us,

Matthew 6.14-15 ESV

14“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Jesus orders his followers to forgive, Lk 6.37 and Paul and Timothy advise us to forgive just as we ourselves have been forgiven. Cl 3.13 If we refuse to forgive, we’re defying Jesus—and if we defy Jesus, again, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect God to heed us. Especially if we’re asking his forgiveness.

I know, I know; I hear all the time from Christians who think God has to forgive every nasty thing they do, ’cause cheap grace. They wanna know how I can say God won’t forgive us, ’cause doesn’t grace mean he forgives absolutely everything? And yes, grace does mean that. But when you’re defying God and his Messiah, when you’re resisting his will, you’re also resisting his grace. You can’t get the grace when you reject the one who gives it!

It’s the same deal with unrepentant evildoers. If you reject the one who answers our prayers, why on earth or in heaven should we expect him to listen to our prayers? Makes no sense. But since when have humans ever made sense?—which is why unrepentant evildoers try to pray, get no answer, and think God’s the one at fault. Or that he’s not even there. Or other such nonsense.

“Yikes! What if I have unrepentant sin in my life?”

You’ve probably seen this scenario: Some Christian newbie wants to know how to “pray effectively”—by which they really mean they want God to answer every last ridiculous wish with “yes” and “amen.” Some prosperity gospel preacher told ’em it’s possible. So they wanna know the secrets to effective prayer, because they wanna be successful, and pay off all their credit cards, and own a mansion and a yacht. Who cares if they live in a landlocked state; yachts are cool.

And invariably someone brings up the fact that God is loath to listen to the prayers of an unrepentant sinner.

“Oh,” thinks the newbie, “is that why God’s not granting me my mansion and yacht?” So they start digging through their lives, trying to find all the unrepentant sins that even they might be unaware of. Which overlooked misdeed is bollixing their magic wishes?

Well the actual overlooked misdeed is this one:

James 4.3 ESV

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

But this doesn’t mean God is so offended by these selfish, materialist prayer requests that he’s never, ever gonna answer their prayers. It only means he’s gonna answer those prayers with “No, child; that’s gonna lead you astray. Try again.”

There’s an upside: These people are examining themselves. They’re trying to root out any evil behavior they might’ve missed. Maybe not for the most noble of reasons, but the Holy Spirit can still use this process to get ’em to stop sinning and misbehaving, repent, and follow him better.

But there’s also a downside: Sometimes the pursuit of prosperity-gospel prayer requests can turn people into frightful legalists. Especially when they’re already rich, think the reason for their riches is their righteousness, and keep up the good behavior, not because they’re trying to be like our Father, but only because they wanna keep their wealth. And especially if they don’t realize their “good behavior” isn’t actual good behavior, but conformity to popular-culture Christianism.

What sets people on the path towards the upside or the downside? Whether or not they’re humble. Humble people are gonna follow the Spirit and root out their own evil. Proud people won’t. They’ll just keep being evil, try to rebrand it as righteousness, and insist their worldly successes are answered prayer requests. And in so doing, really confuse people who covet those worldly successes, and can’t figure out why they aren’t getting ’em. Duh: God’s telling them no. He’s also telling the proud people no as well, but the proud don’t know the difference between God and Mammon anymore, and presume Mammon’s yeses are God’s.

Everybody has areas in their life where the Holy Spirit needs to straighten us out. Rich, poor, proud, humble, newbie, elder. Everybody. And the Holy Spirit is infinitely kind in how he corrects us—so let him!

’Cause if we don’t, those minor failings can easily evolve into major failings; into things where we refuse the Spirit’s correction about them. They can transform us into unrepentant sinners. They can transform us into the sort of people where God will no longer accept our prayers, because our prayers have turned into pure hypocrisy. We don’t wanna go there.