A.

People who believe that God welcomes our prayers, hears them, and answers them, understandably want to encourage others to learn how to pray so they can experience God’s grace in their lives. That’s why we encourage people to pray. But, notice I said, “learn how to pray.” The disciples on one occasion asked the Lord specifically, “Teach us to pray,” and we need to start there too (Luke 11:1).

Sometimes our prayers are rushed, panicky requests—or even demands—that God intervene in our circumstances to bring about a desired outcome. But frequently a response is not immediately forthcoming, and our prayers go unanswered. In fact, matters may become worse instead of better. Why? Scripture does give some answers.

We need to learn to search our own hearts as we pray, because problems may lurk in our hearts that hinder our praying. For instance, James wrote, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (Jas. 4:3). And the Psalmist added, “If I had cherished sin in my heart the Lord would not have listened, but God has surely listened” (Ps. 66:18–19). In other words, our own spiritual health plays a major role in our praying. There’s a reason.

There is much more to prayer than making requests of God. God created mankind for fellowship and communion, to be “friends,” to delight in each other and to have an ever-deepening relationship. Prayer is the talking part of the relationship—the human side of the divine/human interaction. This relationship, as it deepens, leads to a fuller understanding of God’s purposes, desires, intentions, or what we often call His will. The better we know God, the more we know about ourselves and our motives. And the more clearly we understand Him and His will, the more our praying will be in harmony in with God’s eternal purposes and the part our small lives play in the grand scheme of things. This informs our praying, bends our wills closer to His will, moves our requests closer to His mind, and raises the possibilities that we are praying as we ought, asking what we should, and God delights to answer.

When we turn to issues like the COVID-19 pandemic and pray that they will end, we wonder like the questioner why God does not stop them immediately. She says, “I don’t see our God as a person wanting something bad to happen to us. But still it happens. Why?” When we ask God for something, we must not think we are entitled to what we ask for! We must recognize that He may say, “No,” or “Not yet,” or “I have something much better for you.” When He does answer in the negative, we know He has His reasons—some of which we know, others He has not revealed.

We believe that He created and cares for the whole universe and plans on a global scale so that even a pandemic fits into His plans—we do not and possibly cannot know how. But we do know that God allows human beings free choices without granting us the freedom to escape the consequences of those choices, which are often bad. If humans do what they should not do, God may allow the consequences to take their course according to the laws of the created order. (But always under His direction.) In doing this God is not being vindictive, but desirous of turning us back to Himself to walk in His ways rather than to persist in our own self-destructive directions.

Remember, when God does permit the hard things in life to affect us, He is ever ready to bring blessing out of the bad situations by His grace. The letter to the Hebrews tells us, “the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastens everyone he accepts as his son,” then adds, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful… Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:6,11).

There is much about prayer that we do not understand or that we know imperfectly. This should not surprise us—prayer is huge! It’s about human beings being invited into the heart of God to know Him better, understand His ways more clearly, and play a larger role in the unfolding of His universal plans for His world. So it is clear there is much to learn about prayer. As I said above, we need to echo the words of the men who knew Jesus best during His time on earth: the disciples. They said, “teach us to pray.”