Two Dramatic Answers to Prayer in the Context of Hundreds of Unanswered Ones

Last time, I told the incredible story of how the Lord led us to buy a vacation house in the San Gabriel Mountains during the California Bobcat wildfire, which came within six miles of the house. The bottom line of that blog was that once God makes his will clear, we should joyously follow it even if some downstream circumstances prove tragic. As a reminder, our house did not burn down.

But there is another lesson from this event. As I explained last time, for years Annette and I had been

praying about and researching ways to have more direct involvement in our kids’ and grandkids’ lives despite being 2,100 miles away. Nothing made sense. And then one Monday in August, we learned about this great vacation house that made everything fall into place. We put an offer in that Friday, and it was accepted the following Monday.

About the same time, our son-in-law Rosty experienced an equally incredible eight-day dramatic answer to prayer. His law firm was experiencing great stress:  the two senior partners were retiring, it lost its major client, and its overall sector was declining. These dynamics required considerable retraction and downsizing. Rosty saw the handwriting on the wall and began exploring other possibilities. Unfortunately, his segment of law is rather narrow, and due to family needs, he had to confine his job search to the Los Angeles area. Opportunities were hard to come by, and none of us were optimistic.

Then on a Monday, also in August, he saw an online ad for an associate’s position at a dynamic law firm in nearby Irvine. It was a longshot. Despite his solid years of experience, he had no experience in this new firm’s practice areas. Of course, Rosty was completely upfront about what he had and had not done, and his interviewers said they understood and were fine with that. They greatly respected his background and skillset and were confident he would quickly come up to speed in the content areas.

So, just as our house acquisition decision spanned just eight days (from Monday to Monday), so did Rosty’s job search. He was offered the job exactly eight days (coincidently, also Monday to Monday) after seeing the online ad.

Both of these stories are incredibly encouraging and speak to God’s gracious intervention in our lives. But they stand in stark contrast to literally hundreds of heartfelt prayers offered over many years that didn’t turn out the way I or others wanted:  illnesses that ended in death, financial stresses that lingered and lingered, mental illnesses that weren’t healed, new business ventures that failed, marriages that fell apart, wayward children who never returned, addicts who never achieved sobriety, etc. How do we explain this?

The best I can come up with hearkens back to my last post’s reference to three things Jerry Bridges says about God in his incredible book Trusting God:

·       He controls absolutely everything.

·       He loves you completely.

·       He knows what he’s doing.

These truths back you into the corner (metaphorically and theologically) of having to conclude that you can – indeed, must – trust God in all circumstances, even the ones you hate.

Why does he answer some of your prayers (occasionally with great flair) and not others?

I have no idea. But think about this. If you could “make” God do everything you wanted, you would essentially become the all-powerful magician who could make God do your bidding. Do you really want that?

I may not know why God answers some prayers and not others, but I do know that God is trustworthy. As Paul triumphantly affirms, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day” (2 Timothy 1:12). All I can add is, “Amen!”