If you have tried praying to God for something, you have most likely not received everything you asked for. Sometimes God answers prayers right away, and grants us what we want. Other times, we must wait days, weeks, or even years for an answer. Sometimes, it can even feel like God is giving us the opposite of what we want, and it can be very hard to see His love through these instances. 

Though unanswered prayers are very frustrating and faith-challenging experiences, we can take hope from other people’s testimonies. Some of the most powerful of these are found in the Bible and in the lives of the saints. One of the most popular examples of a delayed answer to prayer is that of Abraham and Sarah and their longing for a child. God promised Abraham “I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your descendants also can be counted” (Genesis 13:16 RSVCE). This promise was somewhat out of the blue, and completely unbelievable, since both Abraham and Sarah were old and childless, but God repeated it over and over. When Abraham prayed for a child, God told him that his descendents would be as numerous as the stars, and Abraham believed Him in faith. However, when no child appeared soon afterwards, Abraham’s fallen human nature got the better of his faith, and he doubted. He decided to take matters into his own hands, and bore a son through his wife’s servant. Though he thought this decision would be how God would fulfill His promise, it only ended up causing grief for his family and his later descendents. Like Abraham, we need to trust that God’s plan is what is best for us, even if we can’t see how it will work out. No one can fight God and hope to come out on top; doing so will only cause more pain in the future.

It is important to remember that we can only see what is directly ahead of us, while God sees our whole path. Anyone who has tried raising a child or an animal knows that oftentimes they want things that aren’t good for them. In these cases, it is more loving not to let them have what they want, even if they beg for it. In just the same way, God, as our loving Father, sometimes doesn’t give us what we want because He knows that it will not be good for us, even if we think it will be. 

There are also times when we desire conflicting things, and pray for them both without realizing they conflict. St Augustine writes in the Confessions that before he became Catholic, he snuck away from his mother, St Monica, in order to sail to Rome. His mother pleaded with God to stop him from sailing away, for she feared for his soul in Rome, but God did not answer her prayer. Instead, Augustine writes that “Thou, in the depth of Thy counsels and hearing the main point of her desire, regardest not what she then asked, that Thou mightest make me what she ever asked” (Confessions, Book 8). God did not stop Augustine from going to Rome, for He knew that in Rome, Augustine would eventually be converted to Christianity, which was what Monica truly wanted. We should pray for what we believe is good, but we must understand that God knows the true desires of our heart, and what is really best for us, and when they conflict He will answer our deeper desires instead of conforming to what we think He should do.

Although it is challenging, the proper response to unanswered prayers is trust. Even if it is incredibly difficult to see what good might come out of a situation, we must trust that God is taking care of us. Though we may not see the benefit of our unanswered prayers immediately, or even for years afterwards, it is there. Abraham learned this the hard way, but after years of waiting, God rewarded his trust and granted him and Sarah a son who would become the father of Israel. When we pray, we place all our concerns in God’s hands. Like Abraham, we must learn to leave them there and trust in His goodness! God made good on every promise He made to Abraham, and He will take care of us as well.

To read more about Abraham, look at Genesis 12-23. Also, please pray for my sister and her high school class as they prepare to go on retreat in a couple of weeks. I am praying for you as well, and I hope you have a blessed week!