Hebrews 5:7 During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

How thoughtfully did you read that? The Holy, Eternal Son of God passionately prayed “to the one who could save him from death” and yet, despite being “heard,” he died an agonizing death in humiliation and apparent defeat.

If by answered prayer we mean being given what we want when we want it, it is a biblical fact that not every prayer will be answered, no matter how Spirit-filled and faith-filled we are.

Moses, Elijah and Job were men of superior integrity, devotion and faith. Jonah was a prophet of God. They not only wished they were dead, they asked God – some even pleaded with him – to kill them (1 Kings 19:4; Numbers 11:14; Job 6:8-9; 7:15; Jonah 4:3,8,9). None of these prayers were answered.

As I have commented elsewhere:

2 Corinthians 12:7-9 To keep me from becoming conceited  . . . there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. (8) Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. (9) But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you . . .”

Paul was adamant that this “thorn” was anti-God; “a messenger of Satan” that tormented him. Despite the mighty apostle’s immense faith and spiritual authority, however, God cared too much for Paul’s spiritual well-being to answer his repeated prayers for the attack to end. God’s “grace” – the spiritual empowering to endure, divinely seeded within Paul – was enough.

The Lord revealed that the quick delivery most modern-day Christians expect, could have spiritually ruined Paul because of the greater danger lurking in the shadows – pride.

Over and over Scripture tells us to rejoice in trials. This is not so that we can act macho but because trials really are something to rejoice about. Trials do us good, developing character and spiritual benefits that will last forever. They equip us for ministry. They equip us for eternity. Like Paul, however, when we’re in the midst of them we want out. There are times when God loves us too much to answer those escapist prayers. God has our long-term good at heart, not some short term high that fizzles.

Try reading this Scripture in a new light:

1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

This is nothing remotely like a promise that God would make strong temptation melt away for his beloved. Instead, it is a promise that we would be able to “stand up under it.” The King James Version uses the expression “able to bear it.” The point is that if the divinely-provided “way out” (or “way to escape,” as the old version puts it) was for the temptation to go away, there would be nothing to “bear.”

Too many Christians wrongly suppose that if temptation continues to rage after prayer, there must be something wrong. The divine game-plan has never been to prevent us from being hit repeatedly by fierce temptation but to empower us to endure it. The promise is not that God will mollycoddle us, treating us as embarrassing weaklings who would shame him the moment things get tough, but that God will secrete within us everything that we need to heroically survive the onslaught – and by so doing be acclaimed forever as spiritual champions.

Even in the Old Testament, God’s people were called to fight the enemy, keep themselves holy and in no way compromise and yet, for at least two divinely brilliant reasons, God chose not to give them quick deliverances but to keep them battling their enemies year after year:

Exodus 23:29 But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you.

Judges 3:1 These are the nations the LORD left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan (2) (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience)

As Peter affirmed, no matter how intimate your relationship with the all-powerful Lord is, you should “not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12).

Consider the spiritual heroes portrayed in the faith gallery in Hebrew 11. Many of us lock on to the first half of the gallery – those who by faith received miracles – and overlook the second half, who through faith received the power to endure torment and martyrdom when God saw a better way than to grant miraculous avoidance.

Hebrews 11:35 [By faith] Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. (36) Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. (37) They were stoned; [they were put to the test;] they were sawn in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and ill-treated – (38) the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

Even of the first half of the faith gallery, Scripture says none received in their lifetime what had been promised (verse 39). And consider Abraham: for year after year, decade after decade, his prayer for a child went unanswered. He had no idea what was going on, but it turned out that each year his prayers went unanswered Abraham was achieving eternal glory as a man of faith, the spiritual father of all who have faith. Likewise, Job ministers so powerfully through the centuries right down to today because both his prayer for healing and his prayer for death met icy silence. There are times when unanswered prayer is the only path to such glory.

Faith, says Scripture, is more precious than gold, and yet faith can only grow by prayers going unanswered for what seems an eternity. Yes, the answer finally comes, but faith grows by stretching. It’s usually in those dreary days of unanswered prayer that faith grows best.

God knows how to give good things to his children.

Matthew 7:7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (8) For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

That sounds as if we will get anything we ask for, but read on:

(9) Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? (10) Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? (11) 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!

That still sounds like we will get anything we ask for, but consider the implications of Jesus’ teaching that God is the perfect Father.

If a child asks for bread, he won’t be given a stone. Nevertheless, a child will sometimes be given vegetables that to him seem as tasteless and as useless as a stone. The child might complain as bitterly as if he were actually given a stone. Nevertheless, his cries for candy and ice-cream will sometimes go unheeded because wise parents know how to give good things to their children.

Likewise, if a child asks for a fish, he will not be given a snake. If, however, a little child foolishly asks for a cobra or scorpion to play with, he will not be given one. Again the child will feel unfairly treated but no matter how much he pleads, the child will not be given anything harmful. Likewise, in order to remain the perfect Father that he is, God must refuse our request when in our ignorance we ask for things that to us seem good, but ultimately are not in our best interest.

Little children focus on their immediate pleasure, whereas wise, loving parents look out of their children’s longer term good. This is the source of many a complaint from children who mistakenly think their parents are being harsh and stingy. As we grow up we come to realize the benefits of focusing on our longer term good, and we become grateful that our parents did not let us have all the things that we now recognize as being unwise or even dangerous. Yet even as mature adults, we often focus on a ridiculously short time-frame, relative to eternity. Like the perfect Parent he is, God gives the very best to his children, even at the expense of incurring their wrath if they foolishly misjudge what is best for them.

“You have not because you ask not,” (adapted from the King James Version of James 4:2) sounds like an exciting invitation to receive whatever we desire, but before falling into the very trap James is seeking to expose, let’s look at the context:

James 4:2  . . . You do not have, because you do not ask God. (3) When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

So they did, in fact, ask but their prayers went unanswered because they asked for the wrong things and with the wrong motives. The Holy Lord wants to nurture righteousness and selflessness in his children; not use his power to foolishly feed an addiction to lust, greed and materialism.

Near the beginning of his epistle, James said we cannot expect answered prayer if we waver in faith (James 1:5-8). He was referring, however, to asking for something highly spiritual – godly wisdom (James 1:5; 3:13,17). Trying to entice God to answer prayers to foster our selfishness, however, is such a lost cause that rather than suggest more faith, James denounces the practice.

He continues his tirade against praying for wrong things or with wrong motives:

James 4:4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

The next verse initially seems strange:

James 4:5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?

This is reminiscent of what Paul says:

Romans 1:28-29 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. (Emphasis mine).

James is saying that we are all subject to an intense urge to envy. How true that is! Our natural tendency is to slide into the pit of regretting what we don’t have, rather than rejoicing in what we have. Give Joe Average a hundred million dollars and he’d be over the moon with excitement about how rich and blessed he is. Then give ten billion dollars to hundreds of people around him and it will not be long before, regardless of his millions, he is feeling deprived.

(There is an alternative interpretation of James 4:5 but it leads to the some understanding of what “resist the devil” refers to.)

Despite our natural predisposition to be driven by envy, however, James immediately continues to explain that through Christ we can live in victory over this insidious temptation:

James 4:6 But he gives us more grace.  . . . (7) Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Had you realized that the famous Scripture, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,” though applicable to other situations, was actually referring primarily to resisting the temptation to envy (verse 5) and overcoming the temptation to pray “with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (verse 3)?

Few of us pause long enough to realize that this famous quote is referring to resisting the devil’s enticement to use prayer to try to manipulate God into giving us things that end up not being in our best interest spiritually. The attraction of devilish practices such as witchcraft is that they seem to offer supernatural help in feeding selfish desires. The devil does not display our Heavenly Father’s reluctance to grant us things that end up hurting and enslaving us.

Christians are typically well aware that lack of faith often hinders Jesus’ longing to miraculously meet our physical needs:

Matthew 13:58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

The equally serious, but seldom recognized, hindrance to God pampering us with material possessions, however, is the human tendency to push aside the true God and instead worship money, pleasure and/or ease, and ruin our lives by making them our god.

We see the divine dilemma exposed when Jesus fed the multitude. This was no treat to titillate the taste buds. The situation was so serious that some were in danger of fainting on the long walk home (Mark 8:3).

Moved by compassion, he who denied himself bread in the wilderness miraculously provided for these people but – as God’s longing to meet our physical needs often does – it backfired.

John 6:26 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. (27) Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. . . . “
            (34) “Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.” (35) Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. . . . (49) Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. (50) But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. (51) I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. . . .”
            (66) From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

In contrast to some preachers, Jesus withdrew, rather than let people seek God for the wrong reasons and he ended up making it so hard for them that those with materialistic motives left him.

We, too, are in danger of degrading God by worshipping him as a Cash Cow instead of honoring him as the Holy One whose passion is righteousness and selflessness.

Too many of us break God’s heart by putting him in a no-win situation: if God lovingly refuses to indulge our greed we resent him; if he gives us what we clamor for, we destroy ourselves by becoming infatuated with the temporal rather than the eternal.

1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. (Emphasis mine.)

And God’s will is filled with loving and wisdom far beyond ours.

I encourage you to read Life’s Mysteries Explained. It further explains how God has our eternal welfare at heart, rather than our short term ease that is ultimately not in our best interest. It particularly explains the surprising wisdom in God often choosing not to miraculously deliver us from powerful temptation.