Trial of Silence

Author: Joseph

Date: May 2, 2021

Why does it seem that sometimes God doesn’t answer our prayer? Sometimes we pour our hearts out, fall on our faces, and the only reaction we seem to get from God is silence. There are a few reasons God may not seem to answer prayer.

When someone is behaving wickedly, the Lord distances Himself from that person and their prayer is unheard (Proverbs 15:29). In this circumstance, genuine confession and repentance must occur so that we are no longer hostile toward God by living in intentional sin. God considers us upright when we have turned to Him in repentance and our prayer becomes a delight for Him to hear and respond (Proverbs 15:8).

Another hindrance to prayers being answered are that we are praying, but we have already made up our mind that God will not answer us or that He is unable to intervene in our lives - faithless prayer. This kind of prayer is not prayer at all, it is self-deception and a performance to an audience of one, yourself.

A third hindrance to prayer being answered is that you ask with the wrong motives (James 4:2). Sometimes we allow our own desires to rule our prayers instead of seeking the will of God and trusting His answer to meet our needs.

But what if none of these apply to you and you still feel like your prayers are not being answered? Thank God He showed us exactly why this happens with an example in the Bible.

Yeshua was travelling in the “district of Tyre and Sidon. And a Canaanite woman from the region came out and began to cry out, saying, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed’” (Matthew 15:21-22). Yeshua’s response was unexpected from His pattern of behavior. He was totally silent and did not answer the woman at all. The woman continued to follow Him and His disciples, calling out to Him for mercy. She managed to annoy the disciples, who became impatient with her pleading and they requested that Yeshua send her away. Yeshua, however, had a purpose for what He was doing.

Yeshua began to answer the woman, though He did not appear warm and welcoming in doing so, He escalates the conversation to demonstrate His final exclamation, “O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish” (Matthew 15:28).

The woman who was seemingly being rejected kept pursuing Yeshua, kept imploring Him to help her, and persistently followed after Him, even at the disdain of Yeshua’s own disciples. Yeshua was testing her faith and at the same time strengthening her faith by causing her to have to persist and seek Him regardless of was going on around her. She could have left as soon as she did not receive an answer from Him, but she didn’t. She could have left when she heard the chatter of disdainful disciples, who wanted Yeshua to send her away. She could have taken Yeshua’s answer as an insult (Matthew 15:26) but she instead proved to be humble in her request, accepting that she was at Yeshua’s mercy to fulfill it. In a short moment of her life the Canaanite woman’s faith was tested and strengthened by Yeshua not immediately answering her request (her prayer) and she finally left with her prayer answered and God’s mercy given to her.

"...He will give you the absolute best answer to meet your needs..."

When it seems like God isn’t answering your prayer, keep pursuing Him and keep eagerly seeking His mercy. God wants you to be persistent, He wants you to be humble, and He wants you to understand that anything you request of Him is given because of His mercy. He may be waiting for you to realize this by not answering in the way you like, but as we continue to pray to Him and seek His will, He will give you the absolute best answer to meet your needs in response.

Have you given up on praying to God and hoping that He will answer you? Have you turned away from asking Him because others are annoyed by you seeking Him? Do not lost faith, rather, build faith by continuing to pray to God and seek what He has for you, which is always the best.

Matthew 15:21-28

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org