When Prayer Doesn't Work

I've heard phrases like this often: "I tried praying, but it didn't work." Mostly, I hear this from atheists, agnostics and those who once claimed some other faith, but also from struggling Christians. I wonder, have you ever felt that way? Have you "cast your burdens on God" only to be met with silence? Have you cried out into the night sky but heard only the echo of your own voice? Have you plead with Someone to hear you only to experience lonesomeness, smallness, and feelings of rejection?

Sometimes we experience struggles that cause us to question even our earliest beliefs. When those struggles come we reach out for help. But if God is silent, what then? I've spoken to former Christians (now atheist or agnostic) who cite this as one of the reasons for their ultimate rejection of Christ. "Prayer never worked," they tell me--and I can't help but wonder: How were you expecting prayer to "work"?

Disappointment--and, in this case, acute disillusionment--is the result of one's expectations or wishes going unfulfilled. We have certain ideas about what God will do or say when we ask something of Him. Then, when those things don't happen, our hopes are dashed, our fears are realized and our faith falters or even fails altogether. We feel cast aside, unimportant or foolish for believing at all. "My prayers aren't working," we reason, and, in a sense, that may be true. But the next supposition, "God must not care about me" or "God must not exist," is a large and unfounded leap. Perhaps our prayers aren't supposed to "work" at all--at least, not in the way we are expecting or wishing. Perhaps our entire concept of prayer is wrong--or, at best, confused.

"Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few." (Ecclesiastes 5:2)

This above verse sounds nothing like how prayer has been taught to me. I mean, if we're supposed to keep silent, how is God going to know how I feel and what I want? But if we consider God's character and what prayer is designed to be, doesn't this make perfect sense? How am I--a created being--supposed to approach my Creator? Should I pepper Him with requests, supplications, and demands? Should I start right off whining about what rotten luck I've had and demanding He take notice, step in and fix everything, like some genie in a bottle? Or, maybe, the real point of prayer isn't to have an ear for my complaints or to get stuff, but to get to know Who God is--His character.

Let's say I made a date to go out with a friend for lunch. The point of the outing is to get to know each other better, but I end up talking non-stop for the entire two hours. My buddy can hardly get a word in edgewise. Then, when it's time to go home, I find myself feeling strangely unfulfilled. I was hoping to get a lot off my chest, and I did... sort of... but now that I think about it, I'm not even sure I was heard because my friend made hardly a sound at all. Did he even understand? Was he listening? Did he care? I don't know because I never gave him the chance to respond. Now, I bet if this happened to you or me in real life, we would recognize our error and decide to be a better listener next time. After all, we've had many relationships in our lives and we know that it's just as important to listen as it is to share our thoughts. So, why, when it comes to our relationship with God, do we treat Him like a slot machine--putting in request after request, hoping He'll eventually pay off and being disappointed when He remains silent? We don't treat our fallible human friends that way; it would be terribly rude. But God? Well, maybe we do that because we tend to think of Him as a belief, but rather as a Being.

God is not a belief. God is real! He has real emotions, real desires and a real personality. He's also all-powerful, perfectly holy, and exceedingly loving.

Job (despite the fact he was perhaps the most godly man in all Scripture) said, "Teach me, and I will be quiet; show me where I have been wrong." (Job 6:24) This is the correct attitude we must have when we approach God. It is an attitude of humility.

God said, "...if my people humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14) We want God to hear us and forgive us and heal us... we just don't want to comply with the first part--the part that begins, "if my people humble themselves".

When we think about how to pray, most of us think of The Lord's Prayer Jesus taught in Matthew 6:9-13. It reads:

"...Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."

You may notice that the first half of that short prayer is the humbling of the speaker before God. Most of us like to skip that first part and dive directly into the "give us" parts, and while it's perfectly okay to ask God for things, it's absolutely necessary that we humble ourselves first. We must recognize that God is not obligated to do anything we ask. God has a set of plans that may or may not include what we have in mind. In Isaiah 55:8, He said, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways."

God's purposes are not only greater than ours, but His wisdom, foresight and knowledge far exceed our own. Finally, if we want to have a relationship with God and have a part in His kingdom and in His work, we must be aligned with Him, not the other way around. The only way to do this, of course, is for Him to do it for us. He must align us--but He won't do it unless we ask ...and we must be humble enough to ask.

So, if our prayers aren't "working," maybe it's because we have forgotten that prayer isn't a means to get God to do something--it is a way for us to get to know Him. And if we have refused to be silent, to open our ears and hearts to listen to His voice and recognize Him not as a slot-machine god or a genie in a bottle, but as a Person, a Being, a Personality, then our prayers will always seem to fall on deaf ears. You see, that's because, although God is still listening, you are not.