This evening I was driving home from work and listening to the Joy 1250 radio station. There was a Christian program hosting Joni Eareckson Tada, a Christian lady who in 1967–at the age of 17 years old–became quadriplegic due to a diving accident. She said something that encouraged me to share with you my experience of God’s faithfulness in answering prayers. She said that prior to the accident she prayed that God would deepen her relationship with Him, but that she did not expect it to happen this way—she wasn’t thinking ‘paralysis’! But God used her paralysis to answer her prayer and she is so much closer to Him today than she ever could.
Ten years ago I prayed a simple sincere prayer. I asked God, “Lord, I want to experience the love You have for mankind. I don’t want to only experience Your love for me but I also want to experience how You love me and others. I don’t want to only be loved but to also love—to love the way You love. I want to give love and not only receive it.†What I was thinking is that I would fall in love with a godly lady, I would marry her, love her like Christ loved the church and she would love me like the church loves Christ, and live happily ever after. After all, that is how the relationship between God and the church.
Shortly after I prayed that prayer I met a Middle Eastern girl and we became friends for the next 5 years or so. We were close for the last 2-3 years but we were never anything more than friends even though I loved her…a lot! Things were not right in our friendship; there was no mutual love, respect, care, understanding, or acceptance. Nor was there agreement between us as we approached life and even Christianity very differently, and we dealt with relationships and painful situations very differently too. There was pain, rejection, misunderstanding, mistrust, dishonesty, anxiety, worry, depression, disorder, lack of godly wisdom, tears, disagreement and confusion. After 5 years she ended our friendship and the next couple of years were very difficult for me because I had loved her unconditionally and sacrificially as best as I knew how—I held nothing back. In those couple of years I suffered a lot emotionally, psychologically and most of all spiritually even though I knew it was for the best our friendship had ended. The more pure, true, selfless, dedicated, and unconditional your love is the more painful it is to be separated from the one you love and have your love being rejected by them. I remember thinking, “Having my love being rejected is more painful than having me being rejected. Because my love was more complete and perfect than I am as a person.†In many ways I saw my love as a separate entity from me, even though it was an extension of me and expression of who I am. So for me it was double the pain: the pain of being rejected as a person, and the pain of having my love—the very best of me–being rejected.
After our friendship had ended for some time, I remembered that prayer I had prayed about 8 years ago as I had forgotten about it all those years and I understood that God had answered it. See, I wanted to know how it feels for God to love the world and He showed me: He is daily rejected, disrespected, insulted, ignored, dishonoured, His name is abused, His Word is “out datedâ€, His Laws are outlawed, and has His love—expressed through His Son, Jesus Chris–mocked by everyone He created and died for because He loves them! When I prayed that prayer, I had this perfect picture of God loving us and mankind receiving and accepting His love joyfully and graciously—not so, not true—we do not want His love and even when we accept it we rarely revere it. I wanted to experience the love He has for me and others because I wanted to experience joyful love but His love for us has always brought Him more pain than joy; this is true since the creation to the Cross, to the present age and until the end of days. God’s love story with humanity is full of pain and rejection because of mankind’s foolish decisions due to ignorance and arrogance.
It is true that there is a joyful and good relationship between Christ and the church and it might be God’s will for me one day to enjoy a similar relationship with a godly wife, and then I would understand that joyful experience of loving someone who loves me back. But before that happens, God saw it is necessary for me to understand the painful and sad aspects of His relationship with the people He created and loves.
When we pray according to the Father’s will–that is when we pray to know our Lord more intimately, to grow closer to Him, to grow spiritually, to see things the way He sees them from an eternal point of view—God faithfully answers those prayers. We do not have to fear that He misunderstands our prayers; God does not operate like a vending machine–all our prayers are filtered by His wisdom and love. When we make requests according to His will, He honours our intentions and sees that He meets our heart’s desires as He knows best and not as we see fit. When king Solomon asked for wisdom, God was pleased with his request and granted it to him.
When you make a request to your heavenly Father, He does not blindly fulfill your wish but He looks into your heart’s desires and spirit’s needs. God does not simply answer the words that come out of our mouths, but He goes way deeper to address what is really motivating us to say those words. For example, if you ask Him to take your life because you are so miserable He does not take your life, but He gives you joy so that you enjoy life and desire to live. If you ask Him to help you marry a certain person because you think you will be happy with her/him, He sees that what you really desire is not just any random person but you made your request so that you live a godly, peaceful, joyful, and loving marriage life. So He may not answer your request to marry that certain person, but He will arrange for you to marry the right person so you can have a godly marriage. He is a faithful, good, just, wise, merciful, and loving God who desires good things for you.
For a long time I pleaded with Him to answer a certain prayer but in His grace He said, “No, I have something better.†Until the day I die I will be grateful that He answered my prayer according to His knowledge and grace. I have confidence and joy because I know that I have a father who does not only provide for me and answer my prayers, but also protects me from myself—from my own lack of wisdom and knowledge by answering my prayers according to His good intentions toward me.
(Toronto, ON; fall 2012.) by Fadi J
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!â€Â (Matthew 7:9-11)
God gives us perfect gifts because His love is perfect because He is perfect. If God gives us imperfect gifts because we ask for imperfect gifts because we are imperfect, then His love would not be perfect because His love would have failed us! But He does not fail us—no, He gives us perfect gifts—because His perfect love is an extension of His perfect nature and it is not dependent on our imperfect nature and deeds. That is why we call it grace! Neither our limited wisdom, nor our ignorance of our heart’s deep desires (what motivates us to ask for the things we ask for) can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
I asked for little: I only asked for a joyful marriage. But He gave me much more: He showed me the love He has for mankind and how He feels when He is rejected by the people He loves—He showed me how He loves; He showed me how to go through trials and come out spiritually victorious–how to forgive when someone I love deeply hurts me deliberately and how to be joyful no matter the circumstances; He gave me wisdom and discernment to know how to choose a godly wife; He matured me mentally, emotionally and spiritually; and above all He showed me what it means to have Him as my heavenly Father. And who knows, maybe one day I will get married and have a godly and joyful marriage life, after all God is faithful.
The Bible asks us to pray “in Jesus nameâ€, and we cannot pray in Jesus name for things that are against Jesus’ will and purposes. Praying is not so much about making our will happen as much as it is about understanding the Father’s will and submitting to it. The purpose of praying is not to change our Heavenly Father’s mind but to change our minds and align our thoughts with His. And that is why when our Lord Jesus Christ taught us how to pray He said, “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name [God’s name], your kingdom [God’s kingdom] come, your will [God’s will] be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’†(Matthew 6:9-10)
So next time you think God has not answered your prayer, instead of grumbling, be thankful and ask Him to show you how He has answered your prayer. Just because you do not understand His loving ways, it does not mean He has not answered your prayers. That is why it is so important to have the right attitude and be thankful even in the midst of what seems like trials, but often times are the answers to our prayers. If God saw fit that before He answers my prayer to be married to a joyful and godly wife that I go through this trial (that this trial is the first step in answering my prayer by preparing me and maturing me emotionally and spiritually), how can I be so foolish as to reject His ways? And if I do not believe He is good, I grumble against His ways, and decide to do things my way, then why do I even bother asking Him and pray? The whole point of praying is to leave it to Him to answer our heart’s desires according to His ways because we believe He is good, wise, and trustworthy.
God does not delight in our pain and suffering, but when painful times come—and they will come—He sees us through them. He makes sure we come out of those painful circumstances victorious spiritually, know Him better, and become more like His Son. He does not let our painful trials go to waste; He uses all things for our good. We can pray with confidence because His faithfulness, wisdom, and love cover for our human limitations. You can sing of His love forever because you have a perfect heavenly Father who looks after you, takes care of you, and protects you even from yourself.
Many people will ask God for something and He will answer their prayers faithfully but they will not recognize His work, so instead of being thankful for His faithfulness they will grumble against His ways and lose heart. Do not let Satan blind you to God’s good intentions expressed through all His works. Remember, God’s goodness is the truth that you need to view your circumstances through, and not evaluate God’s goodness through your circumstances. God is the constant in your life, everything else changes. Paralysis is temporary, a broken heart is temporary—your whole earthly life is temporary but God is permanent—He is the same God from eternity past to eternity future. If it was not for God’s mercy and intervention we would be completely at the mercy of our enemy, Satan, and the mercy of evil men, but in how many situations God acted on our behalf and came to our rescue? We do not know and that is why we should always be thankful to Him, even when we do not understand the way He answered our prayers.
I used to be scared of praying for the wrong things and therefore making wrong decisions, but God does not want us to live in fear. You will ask for the wrong things because you are imperfect, but you will receive good things because your heavenly Father is perfect. The more I experience His work in my life and I understand His ways and who He is the less fearful I am becoming because I understand His love better now. And His love does not disappoint. Pray with confidence, with pure motives, and for God pleasing goals and if “we do not know what we ought to pray for…â€, it is ok because “…the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.†(Romans 8:26) What a great God we serve.
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.â€Â (1 John 4:18)
