Why God Doesn't Answer Prayers

This is a question that has been on my heart a lot recently for a few different reasons. I have prayed for many things in my life that have not been answered—some of which are theologically important to me:

Why am I me and given the inherent right that comes with being a straight, white male; opposed to all others in socially constructed minority groups by race, sex, disability or health?

And some of those prayers which are more earthly:

That my book will sell 500,000 copies because the Lord’s bridge building work within the GLBT community would be out there so much that no one could ignore it anymore,

and

Lord, you have trusted me in running The Marin Foundation with very few financial resources for so long, in all of which that I feel I have been a great steward of those sparse finances, that it is totally ok to start trusting me with more!

And when it comes to sexuality and same-sex attractions, why does God answer some people’s prayers and not others? I have met very few people who, when first realizing their same-sex attraction, did not pray to God to take those attractions away so as to have an easier life in a way that aligns with a traditional interpretation of Scripture. Because let’s be honest, who would choose a same-sex attraction and the potential life (celibacy or being ‘out’) that comes with it? If you think about it, when someone has a same-sex attraction, whether they act on it or not, are automatically cast as deviant to mainline Christianity. What a heavy responsibility to steward. What haunts me though is how I can just be me, do nothing to counteract my God-given characteristics and get married, have a family, and without a second thought be looked at within mainstream as acceptable before God in my inherent qualities that I did nothing to attain? It’s a question that pains me because I’ll never know the answer.

In going a step further; why does God answer some people’s prayers who seek to “overcome” their same-sex attraction and not others?

In my book I detail a story of a friend of mine who was student body president of a major evangelical university who hid his same-sex attractions for 17 years as he prayed and worked everyday for God to take those attractions away. Yet why does God answer other’s prayers for the same thing but not his, causing him to believe one of two things must be true:

1. Either there is no God because He won’t answer the one prayer he prays

Or

2. There is a God and he’s just condemned to hell anyway because of the attractions he knows not where they came from

The problem is that evangelicals find it easy to come up with excusal answers:

“Because he didn’t pray enough…”
“Because he doesn’t have enough faith…” (this one was actually told to me by a radio host on air last week)
“Because he’s not really Christian and not praying to the God of transformation…”

You name it: I, and they, have heard it.

But I just don’t believe in those faultily constructed “releasing-of-responsibility-blood-off-my-head” excuses that do nothing other than put an even wider unemotional arm’s length gap between our conservative believe system and the gay community. Uttering and crying out to the name of El Shaddai, the Almighty and Yeshua are the same for everyone—God hears them all, all the time.

The most over utilized Christian-eze response is to the bigger question is:

“You can’t see it now but God will somehow use this unanswered prayer for good.”

Theologically correct, yes. But that doesn’t bring help or comfort one ounce when someone is in the midst of whatever they’re going through, feeling like their cries for help just slowly drift off into eternal space. In 2006 when I was receiving death threats in the mail after being attacked and lied about in the national media, my brothers and sisters in the faith kept repeating that phrase to me, almost as if it was told to me enough I’d just start to believe it despite my negatively encompassing situation; pleading with God why He would allow this to happen. There is a difference between reason and application. Just because something is rationally correct doesn’t mean its application can be implemented, easy or not, no matter how “right” it might be. Just the same, straight Christians rattle off that common phrase to GLBT folks. There is nothing worse then when your most earnest prayer is not answered, especially when it comes to life experiences that can’t ever be taken back. So how are we supposed to handle these difficult prayers that go unanswered?

I was reading Christian Theology by Millard Erickson and I came across this great explanation on p. 301-302:

“God’s transcendence over time has been likened to a person who sits on a steeple while he watches a parade. He sees all parts of the parade at the different points on the route rather than only what is going past him at the moment. He is aware of what is passing each point of the route. So God also is aware of what is happening, has happened, and will happen at each point in time, yet at any given point within time he is also conscious of the distinction between what is now occurring, what has been, and what will be…God has access to all information. So his judgments are made wisely. He sees all things in their proper perspective; thus he does not give anything a higher or lower value than it out to have. One can therefore pray confidently, knowing that God will not grant something that is not good. Even though we are not wise enough to see all of the facts, or the results to which our ideas or planned actions may lead, we can trust God to know what is best.”

Here is the Andrew Marin synthesis to that paragraph:

God is inherently good because He is a supreme being that knows all and is in all. So our unanswered prayers are not due to a lack of faith.

Not due to a wrongly formatted prayer.

Not due to God not hearing our deepest cries.

They are because God is a good steward of our faith and life as a whole, such that unanswered prayers are not a negative, but rather an opportunity to experientially continue to live out an active faith amidst and through the missing answers because God’s love for us is always best—and the best in most cases goes unanswered in the areas that we long for answers the most! Why? Because what we long for the most is usually the one thing that has taken over priority in our lives and become our identity.

This realization is what an honest, non-Western-non-consumer-non-seeker-friendly faith is all about. God never promised to answer our prayers, He promised to wholistically always give us what is best for the faith journey of our existence from day one to death bed according to what He sees best. And it brings me peace to cognitively realize that unanswered prayers cannot just be succinctly put into pop-cultured theology, but they are actually as great as those prayers that are answered because God’s best is an opportunity to live out His eternal answer in real time—in either an answered or unanswered fashion.

Much love.
www.themarinfoundation.org

Year End Reflection on my Weaknesses

As the end of 2008 continues to arrive quicker then I know what to do with, I wanted to reflect a little bit on what I’ve learned about myself. This past year has been a year of many firsts and big happenings:

-I got married
-I wrote and edited a book
-My Grandpa (who taught me what a humble, loving and hardworking man looks like) really digressed in his health—he now has full blown Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Please pray for my Grandma as she takes care of him everyday, as well as for restoration and peace as his life winds down.
-My organization grew almost 40% from last year even in the midst of bad economic times
-For the first time I was speaking around the country for a good majority of the year
-My best friend moved from Chicago to San Francisco
-My wife and I are remodeling our condo
-I started a blog—something I said I’d never do! :)
-And I’m still in Grad School…these classes just keep dragging on and on. Ugh.

With all of those major events happening in one year it seems like my mind has been in a constant whirlwind. I’m not one who likes change. I don’t like limbo either. And yet that seems to be the exact place the Lord continues to put me in day after day, month after month. So I can either flow with Him or not. As my Dad says, “When the Spirit moves, just move with it!” And that’s what I’m trying to do with an open spirit that doesn’t paralyze me into fearing what is uncomfortable. It’s funny for me, because my ‘uncomfortable’ is not the unknown. It’s not people crying, sharing their lives or deepest darkest secrets. My uncomfortable is not entering into a constructive place of tension and staying there without being able to give an answer. My uncomfortable is rearranging my living space. It’s moving into a new office or condo. It’s buying a TV or some new furniture. I don’t know if this means that my priorities are dead on, or they’re way off. But I do know that I for sure know what makes me queasy.

There have been quite a few highlights this past year, and I hope many of them are just the start for what is to come. But if I only focus on the good stuff I’ll never grow. Therefore I’m going to publically self-assess my own weaknesses and start to work on them. None of us are without weaknesses; drat those weaknesses! So here are my two major weaknesses:

1. Self-doubt in the midst of trying to do great things for the Lord
2. Always trying to please everyone

The more I think about it the more I start to realize that my self-doubt comes out of my will to please everyone. No, I cannot please everyone. This understanding that I truly can’t please (when I say please I mean: help, assist, accommodate, agree, etc) everyone makes me think that I’m letting people down. Therefore, since I am not constantly able to do all of those things I doubt my ability to then be able to accomplish God’s ultimate goal for my life. I try as hard as I can, as Paul says, “to be all things to all people” so as to draw them closer to the Lord. But my mind wants that Pauline lesson to be so literal that it starts to overtake my rational reasoning of what actually can and cannot be done. I am learning the hard way that I am human—one man—who can only do so much. Regardless of my cognitive understanding of my own limitations, the doubt not-so-subtly creeps in. A friend of mine always tells me, “If the devil can’t get you to do the wrong thing, he gets you to do too much of the right thing causing the same result.”

And that is the balance that I’m trying to find right now as I move forward in my life’s work—both in my writing as a ministry and my organization. I have only really become aware of, or should I say, been able to put a label on my weaknesses just recently. Therefore I have been intentionally working on them by learning how to set boundaries, and also learning how to say no. Both of those things are extremely hard for me to do. But none the less are the two things in my life right now that will greatly hinder me in building a sustainable life’s work without quickly burning out. And any buring out is not what I’m here to do—or be.

Much love.
www.themarinfoundation.org