Why Doesn’t God Answer Prayers?
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One of his fellow crew members was deathly sick, he said.
The sick man was still in the boat, which was on the shore about a 45 minute
Jeep drive away. The man at the door had walked that distance, meaning the sick
man had already had a considerable wait. Could I please pick up the man and get
him medical care?
They possibly knew that our parish had two nuns who were
nurses and that we had a clinic. Or he could have learned that I was one of the
few people in the area who had a car. At any rate, how could I refuse?
Writhing in Pain
We brought the sick man to the parish’s examination room. He
was writhing in pain, had abdominal swelling and an extremely high temperature.
One of the nuns determined that he had a blocked intestine and that he would
die without treatment. We decided to take him to the hospital in La Paz, a
two-hour drive over rough roads. He died shortly after we reached the hospital.
I recall that this happened on a Sunday night because the
Gospel of Mathew from that morning’s liturgy was fresh in my mind. It included
the famous passage, “Ask and it will be given you; seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you.”
Standing over the man on the table in our examination room,
I was determined to test that pledge. Was Jesus serious, or was this just
another nice-sounding promise? If I asked and didn’t receive, was it because I
lacked faith? No such condition is mentioned in the gospel passage. And how
much faith do you need? And how could a just God determine the fate of this man
based on a test of my faith?
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Despite these doubts, I prayed earnestly and sincerely for
the man’s life. I was sorely disappointed when he died.
Many people have had similar experiences. They pray, and apparently
nothing happens. We are answered with silence. We may wonder why but usually
just shrug our shoulders and move on.
I believe the first answer to this question, “why God
doesn’t answer our prayers,” has to be, “We don’t know.” The gospels were
written at least 50 years after Jesus’ death and are no doubt missing a lot of
what he said and did and some parts are more accurate than others. Did Jesus further
explain the “asking and receiving” passage? Maybe.
Christians aim to follow the gospels, but from modern
biblical studies, we know that we have to be discriminate. Some verses are
undoubtedly meant to be taken literally; others not. It depends on the context,
the intent and many other factors that Scripture scholars study. One of the traditional
functions of the church is to help determine the meanings.
Common answers to the question are that God answers all
prayers, but not necessarily in the way we may expect. Or, he/she simply says
“no,” which appears to contradict Jesus’ words on the subject. An answer that
makes the most sense to me is in the context of a parent analogy.
Wanted Everything
As young parents, I recall taking our children to an
amusement park several times. Like most kids, they wanted everything – cotton
candy, hot dogs, candy bars, ice cream, soft drinks. We generally bought one
thing to eat and another to drink and that was it. When they didn’t get other
stuff, they sometimes became angry, cried or pouted – for about two minutes.
Then they forgot about it until they saw the next thing they wanted.
We finally figured out that the best approach was to lower
their expectations before going to the amusement park. We said something like,
“You’ll get one thing to eat and another to drink.” That solved the problem.
It’s evident that children often don’t know what’s good for them,
or even what they want. And that doesn’t apply just to children. That’s why I
like the analogy with God and prayer.
Looking back on the scene in the examining room in Bolivia,
I must admit that I really didn’t know what was best for the sick man. Endowed with
the instinct for self-preservation, we always assume that death is the worst
thing that can happen. If all that we know about God from religious tradition
is accurate, however, that’s not how God sees things.
And he/she is the parent.
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