How God Answers Prayer 4
Last week we considered the first way in which God can answer prayer: by answering a prayer just as we pray it. I want to pick up on a minor point from that discussion and use it as our introduction to this, the second way that God can answer prayer. That point is that it would be cruel of our God to answer all of our prayers exactly as we pray them. For God to lay aside his own merciful governance of all his creatures and all their actions and to instead give sovereign reign to the capricious and sin riddled requests of his people would be one of the most unloving things God could do. More often than not, what we want is not what we need. That truth brings us to the second way in which God answers prayer.
God sometimes answers prayer by giving something of equal or greater value to that for which we pray.
We could turn to John Calvin for a restatement of this method of prayer answering. “God does not answer our prayers as we pray them but as we would pray them if we were wiser.” It certainly is a merciful condescension of God to purify our prayers in the blood of Christ, taking the worth and value of them and clothing them in what we need rather than what we want. Sometimes we ask for temporal blessings and the Lord gives spiritual blessings. Sometimes we ask for deliverance from suffering and God provides patience. This was Paul’s experience as he relays it in 2 Corinthians 12:8-9.
Paul had been given the singular gift of seeing a revelation of heaven that was so glorious that he was prohibited by God from even attempting to record what he saw. Paul goes on to describe how God hedged in his pride. To keep Paul from boasting, God gave him “a thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass” him. Commentators differ over what exactly this “thorn in the flesh” exactly was. From the word use, it seems that this trial was both a physical ailment (thorn in the flesh) and a spiritual attack (harassing messenger of Satan).
Notice how Paul responds to this physical and spiritual attack: repeated prayer. Three times he pleaded with God to deliver him from his suffering. What was God’s response? Did God answer Paul’s prayer exactly as he prayed it? No, instead God gave him something better, a realization of how the power of God was made perfect in weakness. Paul’s answer was that he had been given something better than physical and spiritual comfort, he was given the privilege of being a lightening rod of God’s power. He asked for deliverance and God gave him patience. He asked for relief and God gave him an enlarge vision of God’s own glory. He prayed and god answered differently but better.
This is how it is for us in our prayers so often. We pour our hearts out before our God for deliverance. Yet deliverance does not come and we question God’s ability to hear and answer prayer. What we often do not notice is that through our trial our Lord is lavishing on us his vast treasury of spiritual wealth in Jesus Christ. I have never met a Christian who grew in comfort. I have met plenty of Christians that grew through adversary, though they continually prayed for it to cease. Samuel Rutherford put it succinctly, “Grace grows best in winter.”
To illustrate this, consider my 4-year-old on our most recent yard work outing. I had to cut down some pine beetle infested pine trees. My son’s eyes lit up with every stroke of my orange and beige chainsaw. He then asked, “Daddy can I use your chainsaw?” I replied, “No, but here is a football you can throw with your brother.” He wanted to play with my chainsaw and thought that was best for him. I knew otherwise. I knew a football would be much more fun and much less injurious to my son than a chainsaw. I gave him something equal or better when I substituted a football for a chainsaw. I acknowledged the worth of his request though I answered his request different than he asked.
A second illustration would be from the life of J.C. Ryle. A little known fact about Ryle was that he was poised as a young 25 year-old to take over the banking empire of his father. Yet, in a day, Ryle would watch his father and his father’s bank go completely bankrupt. It was that painful event that propelled Ryle into ministry. Ryle would speak of that even this way, later in life.
I have not the least doubt it was all for the best. If my father’s affairs had prospered and I had never been ruined, my life, of course, would have been a very different one. I should have probably gone into Parliament very soon and it is impossible to say what the effect of this might have been upon my soul. I should have formed different connections, and moved in an entirely different circle. I should never have been a clergyman, never have preached, written a tract or book. Perhaps I might have made shipwreck in spiritual things. So I do not mean to say at all, that I wish it to have been different to what it was.
Ryle learned that the Lord had dealt graciously with him in giving him not that which he wanted but that which was best for him.
One last point before we conclude. Sometimes God’s judgment upon his people is to give them what they ask for. If we spurn God’s graces in giving us grace equal to or greater than that for which we ask we need to fear lest God give us what we ask for to our detriment. For a biblical example we have only to look at Israel’s request for a king in the opening chapters of 1 Samuel. Israel insists, even after Samuel’s warning, that they want a king like the nations. Hosea 13:11 is very clear that god gave them a king in his judgment upon their rebellion. Beware, if you insist on getting exactly what you ask for, you may just get it!
And now for some reflections in conclusion.
- Pray boldly knowing that the worth of your prayer will not be denied you. You cannot pray a prayer too big for God. He may not answer your prayer in word but he will answer it in worth. Do not let the uncertainty of God answering your prayer exactly as you pray it be a hindrance to deep and hearty prayer. God is not a department store. He will not give you an answer at equal or lesser value. Instead he will give you the worth of your prayer at equal or greater value.
- Learn from God’s answered prayers his will for your growth in grace. If you have a prayer that is apparently going unanswered, examine your life to discern other ways that God is graciously growing you more into the image of his blessed son, Jesus Christ.
- See the gospel in this. The gospel is, at its root, renewing sinful backward people to want the things that God wants, first and foremost God himself. This equal or greater theology of prayer flows from God’s gospel love for his people. He is only content to give his people that which contributes most to his glory and their good.
- Realize that suffering, illness, and death may be the best thing. This is no easy lesson to learn. The Lord’s plan for us or for our loved ones may not always include comfort, health, or old age, despite that which we pray. Let us learn as a people to see in the life of Christ an example for our life on earth: sacrificial love displayed in humble suffering leading to a crown and glory that cannot be tarnished or taken away. Let us see in Christ a savior who loves us and bears our burdens because he cares for us.
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