Resignation is one way to deal with the disappointment of unanswered prayer and the doubts that are raised for us. We stop praying in order to escape from disappointment and doubts. But Jesus pretty clearly commands us not to adopt this path. I see this in Luke 18:1 And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. To lose heart is to adopt resignation. The parable of the widow and the unjust judge is a story about not adopting a path of resignation even when all the circumstances would indicate that was the most appropriate response. [Here is a sermon on Unanswered Prayer. If you only want the part that looks at this passage, start at 13:30]
We need a way to deal with the unanswered prayers in our lives that does not lead to us losing heart. The most common approach that I have seen in church fellowship is to focus on testimonies of when people do receive answers to their prayers. This is intended to be an encouragement to faith. However, this approach does not offer any help with the experience of unanswered prayer other than saying, “Don’t pay attention to that, pay attention to this.” And it reinforces the idea that God is not present in that experience of unanswered prayer because the testimony is about God “showing up” in answered prayer. (see Never Not Working post) This approach fails for a lot of people because instead of encouraging them to enter a room of faith, it leaves them feeling like they are on the outside looking into a room that is not their experience.
The surrender I am talking about is practiced while in that outside place. It can only be practiced there. And it can be profoundly devotional. With this surrender, we are putting God at the center of our devotional relationship with him instead of our need or desire. We are declaring our faith and trust in his character of loving care, even though we are not experiencing that. Instead of the area of unanswered prayer being viewed as the absence of God and his purposes in our lives, it can be seen as an aspect of God restoring us to a devotional relationship with him. (see Restoring Devotion post)
With this approach, we do not view our unfulfilled longings in unanswered prayer as potential threats to our expectant faith and therefore do our best to ignore them. We pay attention to them and how they affect us because the more we feel them, the greater our act of devotion when we surrender them to God. And we are able to keep bringing them to God without the experience of his absence if we end up focusing on who he is and our trust in him in this practice of surrender.
A common teaching on prayer emphasizes that we should begin with praise and adoration, focusing on who God is before we get to our petitions. But with areas of unanswered prayer, I think it is even more important to end with focusing on who God is. We see this at the end of Habakkuk.
Though the fig tree should not blossom,
Habbakuk 3:17-18
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
People tend to fall into two camps. One camp is people who are enthusiastic about prayer and how God works in their lives, but can act as if the experience of unanswered prayer is rare and not really a problem for faith. The other camp is people who can be refreshingly honest about the struggle of unanswered prayer, but have lost their enthusiasm for prayer as a result. I envision the person who practices surrender to be a person who is refreshingly honest about unanswered prayer, yet is someone who is still enthusiastic about prayer. The tell tale sign is not so much that they continue to pray in that area of unanswered prayer, but that they pray about everything else in their lives with an enthusiasm that has not been dampened by the unanswered prayer. A lot easier said than done, I know. But think about how surrender helps us to do it.
I would love to connect with you about these posts if they have stirred any thoughts or questions. Take a minute, shoot me an email at bo@leavenedlives.org, and let’s see where that takes us.