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I wonder if there’s a prayer request that you have been praying for quite some time. Maybe God has said, “I’m going to answer that in a different way. “ Maybe you’ve heard God tell you that it’s going to be at a different time. And maybe just for right now anyway, God has said no. What do we do when we pray something and then God shuts the door? Do we just give up praying? Do we just give up hope that God will answer our prayer requests? Sometimes we learn that He answers in a way that is completely different than we ever imagined. Usually, always it’s that way, because our God is so much greater than we are.
We can’t even imagine the things that He is able to do. Sometimes God also answers in a time that is different than our own. We have this little timetable and we think God should answer between now and this time. When He doesn’t do that, we can like be in despair and wonder where is God and why doesn’t He love me? But we know that we can trust God because He is a wise God and He’s righteous, which means He always does that which is right and what’s right for me. Let’s think a little bit about the truth that when God says no, He is showing His love for me.”
What? Even when God says no? I mean, shouldn’t He always give us what we ask for when we’re praying?
Well, I think about my own parents as I was growing up. They did not always give me what I asked for because they loved me too much and they knew that that was not the best thing for me. And God is a greater in love parent than my mom and dad were.
God knows what is best for us. Let’s look at a biblical example and then I’ll share a personal example from my own life. We’re going to see what the request is, why this biblical person could ask for a request, what they were expecting, and then how God responded to their prayer request.
Perhaps you’re familiar with the story of David and Bathsheba. We find that story in 1 Samuel chapter 11. David was the king at this time. L David tells us that he had stayed in Jerusalem while he sent all of his men out to battle. And he arose from his bed and he looked out his window and he saw Bathsheba bathing herself.
He lusted after her beauty and he called for her to be brought to the palace and David commits adultery with Bathsheba. She became pregnant because of this affair. To hide his sin, David has her husband killed. Then God sends Nathan to David to point out his sin and remind David that God was knowledgeable about it. When we read in 1 Samuel 12 verse 9, it kind of sums up the whole story and it reads, Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight?
Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. And the result was in verse 14, it goes on to say, Nathan tells David, Because by this deed, thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born into thee shall surely die. So God sends Nathan to tell David, because of your sin, the child that was conceived in this relationship is going to die.
So now we can almost even guess, if we didn’t know this story, what would David pray and ask God for? Well, David is asking God to heal the child. When we look at verse 16 of chapter 11, we read David’s prayer where he is talking to God and he asks the Lord to heal the child and to spare this child from death.
David therefore besought God for the child and David fasted and went in and lay all night upon the earth. He wouldn’t get up and he wouldn’t eat.
Have you ever had a burden so great on your heart that you just couldn’t eat? You couldn’t even get up? That’s what David is doing. He is continuing in prayer.
He’s pleading for the life of his child that has been sick. So the request that David is making is for the healing of his child.
Now, let me give my personal example of a request that I was asking God for.
In the seventh month of my second pregnancy, I suddenly realized one day that there was a problem. Because when the movement in my womb stopped, I almost felt like my heart did too. My husband and I cried.
We prayed. And we asked God, “Oh Lord, would you please just allow things to be okay with our baby?” I was out of the state when I discovered that there was a problem
So we traveled home. And in that journey home, I felt like David crying out to God over and over again, “Oh Lord, please allow this child to be okay and there to be no problem. And if something’s wrong, would you just heal the problem?”
I knew God could. And so we were trusting him for that. Now, what’s the reason that David could even expect God to hear his prayer?
David had a clean heart. David had a clean heart now. He didn’t before, but now, verse 13 tells us – “And David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.”
And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also has put away your sin. Thou shall not die. He said, David, you’re not going to die.
But Nathan goes on then to say that the child was going to die. But David could expect God to answer his prayer because he confessed his sin. And Nathan even reminds him, David, God has put your sin away from him.
I love Psalm 103, that God removes our sin as far as the east is from the west. And he won’t bring it up to us again. He doesn’t remind us of it and make us feel guilty.”
It’s removed from us, just as David was told by Nathan. So David has a clean heart and so as he’s praying to the Lord, he’s going to God with a clean heart.
First John 1.9 tells us that if we confess our sin, (this is a verse for believers) He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So also Psalm 66.18 tells us that if we regard iniquity in our heart, the Lord will not hear us.
But David had confessed his sin and he’s even called a man after God’s own heart. So surely if God was going to answer someone’s prayer, it would be David’s. David is coming before God because he’s a man with a clean heart.”
“Now, why would my husband and I even expect that God would hear our prayer? We’ were serving God. We belong to him. We’re His children. And yes, even at that time, we said, “Lord, is there sin in our heart that needs to get right with you that we need to confess?” We made sure that we were clean in God’s sight.
So, making sure that we are in fellowship with God, could remind us that, yes, we can come to God and expect him to hear our prayer. But lastly, I want us to see the response from God. How does God answer David’s prayer?”
David’s son went to heaven. Verses 19 and 20, But David perceived that the child was dead. Therefore David said unto his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead. Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his apparel and came into the house of the Lord and worshipped. Then he came to his own house and he did eat.
It goes on in verse 22 to say, When the child was alive, I fasted and I wept. For I said, Who could tell whether God will be gracious to ME that the child may live? But now he is dead.
Wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”
God didn’t allow David’s son to live, but he answered by taking that child home to heaven. That child has never known sin. That child has only known the presence of God. When God is merciful to the parents, the child lives. When God is merciful to the child, God takes that little one to heaven.
God was gracious in taking that child home, but God also gave to David the assurance that he would see him again. What a loving God! Yes, friends, God was loving in taking the child home to heaven and giving that comfort to David.
Because you know what? That passage right there became a comfort to me. Because the end of my story, when we were asking God to spare our child, I went to my doctor and he did an ultrasound and they found that there was no heartbeat.
There were no jerky baby motions in that ultrasound. It felt like my body was now her tomb. And we were left with the fact that she was going to be born, stillborn.
We had no way of how God was using this story even then, really as an answer to a prayer that I had prayed some years before, when I had said, “Lord, will you teach me how to comfort others?” You learn to comfort others when you lose your child. When your own child dies, you learn what comforts your heart!
God also used that as an open door for ministry to many hurting families in the years after that who were touched by stillbirth or any other kind of infant death. At our daughter’s funeral, a police officer in our church trusted Christ! Even now I’m able to share that story with even you. Perhaps you’ve lost a child and you could say, How is God loving in this? You might not understand it or see it right now, but God is writing your story. He’s going to use it in your life in a way that maybe you don’t understand at this moment. But if you’ll keep your heart open and sensitive to the Lord, he will allow you to see that he wants to use this for His glory.
That in His wisdom and in His love for you, that child is in heaven. That child wasn’t able to make a choice to refuse or reject God, and because of that, God takes little ones to heaven.
But now, David also had a heart that was drawn near to God. He said, when the child was alive, I fasted and I wept. Do you think those seven days on his face before God gave him a right view of his God?
Yes, it did. Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you, James 4.8. God didn’t allow his son to live, but God showed his love to David by forgiving his sin and by giving him courage and strength to move on and also the comfort that that child was with him in heaven.
In my own story, I can say God has used his word to comfort me, to give me a peace and a joy. Oh, and who wrote Psalm 23? David did.
When he said,
He makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leaves me beside the still waters, he restores my soul. And yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
God was shepherding David, and the Lord was precious to me at my time of loss of our daughter, Ashley. Psalm 63.3 says, Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Really and truly over the years, God was better to me than it would have been to have my daughter here.
I know I’m going to be with her in all eternity in heaven. God was loving and God doesn’t always answer in the way we want. Sometimes He will have to answer no because of His love for us.
The real question isn’t why isn’t God answering my prayer, but it should be, “Lord, how can I glorify you in the way you are answering my prayer? We must say “God in His wisdom, in His love, in His righteousness said yes, or He said in a different way, or He said no, but I can trust my God because He is righteous, He is holy, He is love.” Put the glory of God on display with the way God is answering – or even not answering your prayers.
He loves you and He is better than life itself. Do you believe that? His loving kindness is better than the answer to the prayer that you are asking him for. Psalm 63:3
If you struggle with that, talk to God about it. Ask him to show you how precious His loving kindness to you really is. You can trust Him with your unanswered prayers.”
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