Unanswered Prayers
One of my favorite Garth Brooks’ songs is “Unanswered Prayers.” It tells the story of a man and his wife who attend one of his hometown high school football games where he runs into a high school sweetheart, bringing back a flood of memories. She was the one he wanted forever. He prayed each night that God would make her his and if God would only grant that one wish, he would never ask for anything again.
As they talk, he realizes they don’t have much in common anymore and she is not as angelic or as wonderful as his memory served! While the high school flame walks away, he looks at his wife silently giving thanks to God for the gifts in his life and says:
“Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you're talkin' to the man upstairs
And just because He may not answer, doesn't mean He don't care
Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers”[1]
How often have we asked God to make something go the way we wanted without considering the reasons He didn’t answer that request? I experienced this when my family was planning to move to Foxboro, Mass. for my husband’s job. We were excited, but a bit apprehensive because our Houston roots run deep: we both grew up here and friends, our parents and some siblings lived here.
We listed our house for sale, made trips to Massachusetts to visit neighborhoods and then the doors started to close on us. My dad suffered a heart attack, my 17-year-old Siamese cat died (who survived marriage, a move to a house from a condo and three girls who dressed her up and played doctor on her), our rabbit died, there was zero interest in anyone wanting to buy our house and then, my mother was diagnosed with cancer.
My prayer to God that this move would be the right thing for our family was met with one door after another slamming in our faces. After realizing that God was telling us that a move was not happening, we took our house off the market. I eventually adopted a white cat and named him Cool Whip and I was able to stay in Houston, spending the next 10 months with my mom before she died.
Over the years, I have learned to pray differently. While I fervently prayed that my mother with a radiant smile would beat her cancer, that prayer was not answered. What I have discovered is that God already knows the outcome of any situation: my prayer is to ask for His help in accepting it even when the result is not what I asked for or wanted.
1 John 5:14 sums up what we should remember: “And this is the boldness we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” God knows what we need; we simply need to trust Him.
[1] Garth Brooks "Unanswered Prayers"
