The Mystery of Unanswered Prayer

Many of us have grown up with the belief that God always answers prayer; whether His answer is “yes” “no” or “wait”. Even scripture seems to point out that when we pray, we are to be confident that God will answer (Mat 7:7-8). Yet how many times do we wander if Father has even heard us at all, wait for an answer that never really comes, and perhaps even assume upon what His silence means and move on. Either way we often find God to be seemingly absent, and the necessity to pray less and less real.

A while back I did a study on the mystery of unanswered prayer, and was absolutely blown away by what I found. Did you know that the scripture spells out multiple reasons why we may not receive an answer to our prayers? Yes, Father does want us to be confident when we ask. But there are real things that can stand in the way, and to those who are listening the lack of an answer will testify of those things.

It is therefore important to realize that what we may have assumed to be a “no”, “wait” or “do whatever you want”, may in fact be Father calling us to reexamine our hearts and/or the situation itself. And what a joy will be rediscovered if when, in discovering and making right our error that stands between us and Father’s answer, we find that Father’s answer is emphatically “YES”. Even if the answer is still “no”, the shear fact that Father gives us a clear answer in a very real way simply speaks volumes to our inner realization of just how much Father cares for us.

Below are a few possible reasons (though not a complete list) why we may not be receiving an answer to our prayers. It is important to remember that pride is very deceitful, tempting some of us to easily write off some of these possible reasons as “for someone else”. For others it is an overly “religious” sensitivity (or false guilt) that may cause us to assume that many of these may be our reason, when they are not. In either case, it is to our advantage to offer up to Father the factors below; asking Him to reveal which ones (if any) are the cause of the hindrance in our prayers.

1. Are we asking to simply suit our own pleasure? “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures” (Jas 4:3).

2. Are we regarding iniquity in our hearts? “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear” (Ps 66:18). Why do we expect to receive and answer to our request, when we are unwilling to listen to what He has already said?

3. Should someone else be asking with us? “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven” (Mat 18:19). Here Christ includes the word “if” indicating that the answer to at least some of our prayers are contingent on at least two or more people submitting their request together.

4. Husbands, have we withheld honor and/or understanding from our wives? “Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Pet 3:7)

5. Are we not truly trusting, delighting in, and committing our way to the Lord? “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass” (Ps 37:3-5)

6. Are we half hearted in our prayers? “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord: he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (Jas 1:5-8)

7. Are we truly asking in the name of Christ? “If you ask anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:13). I believe that for some of us this is something completely misunderstood. For us to conclude that praying in the name of Christ means to verbalize “in Jesus name” at the end of each and every prayer, is no more real than for an Old Testament profit to verifiably be speaking in the name of the Lord simply because he adds “thus says the Lord” to the end of his speech (Deut 18:20-22). Additionally, if it were so significant that we verbally say “in Jesus name”, than why did Christ omit this in (Mat 6:9-13) when specifically teaching the disciples how to pray? Rather to pray “in the name of Christ” is much more than mere words can wield. It means to ask as one genuinely abiding “in” Christ Himself as Christ also abided in the Father (John 15:10). Hence Christ also said “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7). Perhaps then we should also ask this question of ourselves, Are our prayers being hindered as the result of a disconnect in our abiding relationship in Christ?

And, Are there any other reasons that my prayers may be hindered? The list above is by all means not to be taken as an exhaustive list of all scriptural reasons for unanswered prayer. There may be others. And if there are, Father loves you Himself and is able to teach you what that is. All you need is a willing heart to hear whatever He may speak to you, and a sound mind in believing that He will.

PS – If you do find or know of another possible scriptural reason why ones prayers may be hindered, please let me know. I would love to add it to this list that it may become more helpful to all those who stumble upon it.