Thursday, August 21, 2025

            A man named Job in the Bible certainly knew hardship.  The losses and pain he endured are almost imponderable by us today.  And practically unequaled as well—even in the worst of our days and times.  He went through a great time of sifting and testing.  There were times in Job’s story where he experienced or felt God’s silence yet still held to faith in Him.  Job once cried out, “If only I knew where to find Him; if only I could go to His dwelling. But if I go to the east, He is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find Him.” (Job 23:3 and 8).  There is a good chance that many of us have felt like Job at times.  We have struggled in our walk with the Lord.  We can come to wonder what we have to do to get a prayer answered.  We have even looked around and wondered where God seemed to have gone.
            But there could be some benefits to an unanswered prayer.  There could be some eternal lessons we experience and learn in those times where God may be silent in the middle of all our noise and crying out.  A. W. Tozer wrote, “It must be said that sometimes unanswered prayer could be a deliberate action from God to see if we would cling to Him when there are no results occurring.”  Wow!  It can be comparatively easy to walk with the Lord and enjoy life when we are receiving His benefits and our prayers are being answered like a vending machine producing a drink or a snack after money is deposited.  But what about those times of silence or waiting or not even knowing what is happening and why?
            Tozer seems to suggest it can be a test to see how well we cling to the Lord when our hands are empty.  Full hands can make it hard to cling to Christ.  A life overflowing with blessings, gifts and promptly answered prayers can often lead to complacency, entitlement and even spiritual laziness.  We simply come to expect that God is obligated to pour His abundant riches into our lives.  However, in the lean times, where God may appear to be silent and prayer becomes more of a struggle, we learn to seek Him more earnestly and to press on in perseverance.  Remember the woman in Mark’s gospel who was healed by simply touching the hem of Jesus’ clothing.  A simple touch of Christ is far more blessed than all the gifts we could carry.  Holding on to Him has far more eternal value than an arm full of material gifts.    
            To be sure, on occasion, the presence of sin and selfishness might be the reason that some prayers are denied or God sends no response at all.  In such times, we ask God to search our hearts and motives and to expose impurities, pride and the offenses that we have committed against Him.  But the presence of unanswered prayers, at least in the ways we have specifically prayed, may be a test or sifting that God has designed for us and for our good.  God’s call to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac seemed to be a test designed to see if Abraham truly loved the Lord or was Abraham’s faith conditional upon what the Lord had given to Him or promised Him.  Would Abraham still love and walk with the Lord even if God had taken away his only son, Isaac, and the promised fame and great nation that would come from Abraham?  Would Abraham love God for God’s sake or would this test expose that Abraham’s devotion was connected more to the riches God that God provided and promised than to God Himself?
            When it seems that God is silent or not answering prayer, we hang in there.  We continue to pray.  We trust that God will bring this testing to the proper conclusion and we will be stronger, healthier and deeper for it.  Our walk will be richer and sweeter.  Job said in the midst of his struggles, “Yet I am not silenced by the darkness” (Job 23:17a). We are not silenced in the sifting and examining that God does of us either.  We cling to Him.  We cry out to Him.  We praise Him.  We serve Him.  As David wrote in Psalm 30, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”  Have a great Thursday!