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Will God give us what we pray for?

by James Barringer  
4/06/2010 / Christian Living

On my recent reading through the New Testament, I noticed a surprising number of occasions where God essentially extends a blank check to anyone who wants to pray for things from him. Jesus says that anyone with faith the size of a mustard seed can tell a mountain to be uprooted and cast into the sea, and the mountain will listen. James says that anyone who asks in faith will receive whatever he asks for. This is obviously somewhat problematic for anyone who has ever asked for, and not received, something from God. What gives?

If these are the only Bible verses a person ever reads, then we could easily understand how they might come away with something resembling the (uniquely American) God-wants-you-rich "gospel" or the false-healing preachers you see on the television. Indeed, if that was all the Bible ever said about faith, then the health-and-wealth crowd would have a monopoly on truth. But those verses don't exist in the vacuum, and they don't stand alone.

Indeed, Jesus said earlier in his ministry, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." In other words, we have God's promise to us given not as a blank check at all, but as a reward that is linked, permanently and unstoppably, to a requirement. God only adds things to us if we're seeking his things first. If we're not seeking his things, then we prove that we don't understand what's truly important in life. In such a situation, it would be irresponsible of God to give us what we ask for - it would only distract us further from our pursuit of him.

The reason, then, that God does not give us what we ask for in prayer - no matter how sincerely we try to believe that we'll receive it from him - is that it's not what we really need, nor even (if we could understand life the way he sees it) what we really want. Let me give an example. Many people wish they could be more physically attractive, and I'm fairly sure that lonely nights have caused Christian boys and girls alike to ask God to make them more appealing to the opposite sex. Yet being pretty is not all it's cracked up to be. I work with a girl who's pretty good-looking, and she constantly has creepy men hitting on her, asking for her phone number, even trying to pat her bottom. Would you really want that? If you were as attractive as a celebrity, would you really want paparazzi hanging around your house all the time, articles in magazines about your personal life, and so on? Nobody in their right mind would want those things, but in our beauty-obsessed culture, those things are part and parcel of being attractive. If you prayed, fervently and in "faith," that God would make you more beautiful, and he did and you became miserable, what then? Isn't it easier for him to skip the misery stage and simply answer the prayer with a "No"?

That example establishes two things: first, that God sometimes refuses to give us things for our own well-being; second, that God sometimes refuses to give us things because those things cannot possibly be asked for in faith. Asking God to make you rich, for example, is not a prayer that can ever be made in faith. If God were to answer that prayer, it would mean you didn't have to rely on him for your financial well-being anymore. Asking God to make you pretty can never be a faith prayer, because it just enables you to seek approval and identity from other people and what they think of you instead of turning to God. Making you less reliant on him is the opposite of what he wants, so if you're asking to be less reliant on him, that is not a faith prayer no matter how badly you want to believe that God will give you what you're asking for. "Make me rich" is never a prayer that can be compatible with "Seek first the kingdom of God." As long as you seek riches or health or beauty or popularity instead of God, you will have none of those things and also not have God.

I say that God sometimes refuses to give us things for our own well-being. We have to, at some point, face the hard fact that trials are good for us. Most of the major growth that's taken place in your life and mine has come through trials. Difficult times are when we ask the hard questions, when we admit that our old way of doing life or doing religion needs fixing, and when things get shaken up, hopefully for the better. If we were really asking God for what was good for us, we would be asking him to give us trials that require us to grow, tasks that are impossible except for God's help, big goals and big dreams and real risks. Those things are the essence of faith, but how often do we ask God for them? More often than not we're busy asking God for the exact opposite: to make our lives easier. "Make it easier" is not a prayer that can ever be offered in faith. God says that faith the size of a mustard seed will lead to radical answers, but if we're making prayers that are the opposite of faith, God has no problems not answering them. If God persistently refuses to answer your prayers, you might try looking at what kind of things you're praying for, and whether (if God answered them) they would have the effect of making you more reliant on God or more independent of God.

Will God give us what we ask for? As long as we're asking for the right things, then sure. In the Old Testament, David writes several psalms asking for terrible things to happen to his enemies, such as Psalm 55 where he asks God to "break their teeth out." There's no indication that God ever answered this prayer, because we're not supposed to hate our enemies. David's prayer was honest, but it was off-base; the Jewish Law instructed him to "love your neighbor as yourself" and he wasn't doing that. On the other hand, we see in Isaiah 38 where God tells King Hezekiah, "You're going to die." Hezekiah's response is fascinating: he doesn't pray for the restoration of his health. Instead, he repents and prays for God to forgive him, and in return he receives both forgiveness and his health back. That's "seeking first the kingdom." Do you see the implication for your own prayer life?

Jesus hinted at this concept again when he said, "Whoever seeks to save his life" - that is, to have comfort and ease and be in control - "will lose it, but whoever doesn't mind losing his life" - that is, by relinquishing control to God and seeking the kingdom instead of self-advancement - "will save it." What kind of things are we praying for? Are we offering true prayers of faith that God can answer? I think that reflecting on that question can help us focus our prayers, and to make sure we are truly concentrating on God when we pray, instead of treating him like his only purpose in life is to give us the things we think we want.

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

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