Prayer Unfiltered: When You Keep Praying and the Answer Still Hasn't Come

What do we do when we keep praying and the answer still has not come? Do we keep asking, seeking, and knocking — or do we surrender?

In this episode of Prayer Unfiltered, Kimberly Roddy and Elizabeth Powell have an honest conversation about unanswered prayer, persistent prayer, surrender, and trusting God when His timing or answer does not look like what we hoped for.

This conversation is for anyone who has prayed for a long time and wondered if God hears, if He cares, or if surrender means giving up. Together, Kimberly and Elizabeth remind us that prayer is not about wearing God down. It is about staying near to the Father, asking without striving, and surrendering without despair.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What Jesus meant by asking, seeking, and knocking
• Why persistent prayer is not about badgering God
• The difference between surrender and despair
• How to pray without ceasing without spiraling into anxiety
• What to do when God’s answer is no, not yet, or not on this side of eternity
• How God meets us with His presence, grace, and nearness in unanswered places

If you are weary in prayer, grieving an unanswered request, or learning how to trust God in the middle of the story, this episode is for you.

Transcript

The Ache Of Unanswered Prayer

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to our podcast. We are continuing in our series Prayer Unfiltered because you all continue to send us good questions. There are lots of questions out there about prayer. And so thank you for sending them. What we have enjoyed in this series is being able to just talk honestly about prayer and also have a conversation around things, not with formulaic prayers or simple answers, but remembering that prayer is a relationship and talking about things in light of scripture. So today's question is tender. It's not theoretical. It's the kind of question that people ask when they're tired, when they're grieving, when they're confused. Or maybe it's the kind of question you ask when you've prayed for something for a very long time and you still don't see the answer that you're longing for. This is a real question that many of us have faced or will face if we haven't yet. And so as we dive into this again, we don't have all the answers, but we enjoy having an honest conversation and we hope that it encourages you and helps you think too. So here's the question. Jesus tells us to ask, seek, knock, and not give up. He tells parables about a persistent widow and a friend asking for bread at midnight. But what if we keep asking and God has decided not to answer the way we are asking? What if we are praying for justice, healing, for deliverance, or restoration, and God's answer is no, or not yet, or not on this side of eternity. When do we keep persevering? And when do we surrender? Tough questions. And at the onset of this, we want to say to you, our friend who is asking this question, and to others who may be saying, Yes, what is the answer to that question? Your wrestling with God doesn't scare him, and it's raw and it's honest and it's real. And your confusion does not disqualify you from the faith. These are hard, hard questions that we ask in dark seasons. So, Elizabeth, kicking it off to you in the deep end of the pool here to get us started.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yeah, I mean, I I first want to say I so resonate with this question. Kimberly, you and I both have things in our life that we've been praying for for a while. And wouldn't it be nice if God would just show up? And yet there's something to be learned in the wrestling. But it's not just the things that you mentioned. I remember years of praying because I wanted to be married and I wasn't. Or friends who have wanted to have a baby and can't. Like it's like those sound like good, godly things that God says in scripture he wants us to have, and yet it feels like we seek and ask and knock, and the answer is either no or not yet. Or even when we get the answer, it's like, oh wow, this is not at all what I expected this was going to be like. So I really do have a lot of tenderness for this question.

The Persistent Widow In Context

SPEAKER_01 2:48

But starting with the scriptures that she was referencing, it's Luke 18, 1 to 8, and I just want to read it for us so that we all can understand the full understanding of what that is. It says, Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said, In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought, and there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, grant me justice against my adversary. For some time he refused, but finally he said to himself, Even though I don't fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won't eventually come and attack me. And the Lord said, Listen to what the unjust judge said, and will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night, will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? Okay, Kimberly, we are starting in the deep end of the pool, because there's a lot to unpack there, right? So I think the first thing we need to understand is a lot of people take this parable as saying, okay, if I persist enough, God will give me what I want. And Jesus is telling this parable to teach us a lesson, but he's not saying that God is an unjust judge who doesn't care about his people. And if we just badger him enough, God will give us what we want. And I have been around some people who believe that. They're like, well, I mean, Luke 18, that's the parable, and that's where we have to stop right there is the word parable. This is not a promise. It's not even a proverb. Jesus is trying to give an example of a widow going to an unjust judge who eventually gets. Now it doesn't say exactly what type of justice she gives, but the judge gives her some kind of justice against her adversary, basically so she'll leave him alone. But then he goes on to say, if that's what an unjust judge would do, how much more so will God not bring justice for his chosen ones? And that's where this gets tricky, Kimberly. And I'd love for you to jump in and tell me your thoughts on this as well. Is that kind of feels like, well, then God's gonna give me justice. But we don't always feel like we get justice when we ask God for things, right? But he says, I I tell you, he will see that they get justice and quickly. But what is God's definition of quick and what is his definition of justice versus what I think justice is, is he answers my prayer almost immediately.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Again, it's a parable, and I think it changes the perspective when we realize he's not comparing God to the judge, he's contrasting a just God with an unjust judge. And yet, I think we're still left with questions if we're honest.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Yeah, I mean, we know in our own lives and others issues that we've prayed for that we think we know what justice is, we know what the answer to the prayer should be, and we've prayed them for years, and we're not seeing that kind of movement. And that's a hard place to sit in when it feels like I've prayed everything I know how to pray, and should I just keep praying or not?

SPEAKER_00 6:00

I think Elizabeth, we should go on and look at the other passage that this lady references also, because the truth is each little parable can be confusing in and of itself. Like there's a whole ministry of Jesus in the Gospels, and there's a whole set of scriptures where he is seeking to teach us things. And what we can know about this passage is that we are to continue bringing our Christ to the God who does care, but it can be confusing to just read it at face value and not take it into context with other passages.

Ask Seek Knock And Good Gifts

SPEAKER_00 6:32

So I think the other passage is also in Luke.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

It's Luke 11, 5 through 13 is what I'm gonna read. And he said to them, Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing set before him. And he will answer from within, Do not bother me, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is a friend, yet because of your impotence he will rise and give you what he needs. And I say to you, Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be open to you, for everyone who asks receives, the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be open. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent, or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion. If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So again we're seeing this pattern where it feels like, well, if you just bother your friend or you bother a judge enough, God gives you what you want. But then I think what's important is that second half, that nine through thirteen part, why yes, if we ask for a fish, will he give you a snake? But the assurance is that God gives good gifts to his children. Now, sometimes those gifts don't come in the package. I want them to. Sometimes what is God's greatest gift for me in a season, in a moment, in a situation that I'm praying for is not the answer that I'm asking. And I think that is where how I interpret if you ask her for a fish, would he give you a snake? If you ask for bread, would he give you a stone? Is that as his child, sometimes I'm asking for something, and God knows that's not that's not the fish. What you're asking me for is not the fish. It's really a snake. You don't know it yet, but trust me, if I give you what you're asking for, that's gonna be a snake. And sometimes it's about the Heavenly Father, who the greatest gift he gave us, as it says in the last part of that verse, is the Holy Spirit who interprets and prays along with us, is the fish, is the bread, is the truest answer to our questions. But that doesn't take away from the raw place that we feel when we feel like we have prayed everything we know how to pray and even made up some stuff, hoping something's going to change in some very dark, hard places in our lives, and we don't feel like God is moving.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Sure. I was thinking as you were talking about our episode, it probably would have been around April 5th time. A podcast released on the Thursday before Easter, so 5th, 12th, somewhere in there. And I was thinking about the conversation we had in that episode where we were talking about the greatest answer to our prayers, and I think that applies here, is Jesus Himself. Easter represents him giving himself to us. We were talking about Abraham and Isaac making the sacrifice, you know, going up the mountain for the sacrifice. And that's the same principle here. The principle is yes, God gives good gifts to his children. And then we look around and we go, well, I don't think that's a good gift. Sickness, we get sickness around here a lot. Name your sickness, whatever it is. That's not a I don't think of that as a good gift. I don't think of trials or troubles as a good gift, right? But that doesn't mean that that's the gift.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

It may be part of, who knows, the story that God is writing, God is writing. And that's, I think oftentimes where I find myself wrestling. And I know you and I have talked about this. It's often the wrestling through the story he's writing that I don't get to control, that I don't get to dictate. And so I can persevere all day long and I can tell him all the options and I can give him suggestions and I can speak to management and I can do all of those things. And at the end of the day, who's writing the story? I don't have my pen to paper. I don't get to I don't get to write this story in my life. Right. He's writing a story. And the good gift is the Holy Spirit to those who ask. Right. And so I think over and over and over again, he is pointing us to himself.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

And that's honestly what we miss. I was listening to something this week and I was reminded, I was reminded that this device, our phone, where we do our social media, where we get wrapped up into and distracted by things in the day-to-day, there is an algorithm that my phone has that your phone doesn't have. And there's an algorithm your phone has that the person listening's phone doesn't have, right? Because it's directed at us. And why is it directed at us? It's directed at us because every day when I wake up, what's the first question on my mind? What am I going to do today? It's about me. It's about the self-focus. Whereas I think over and over and over again in scripture, Jesus is saying, I want you to see me. I want you to turn to me. I want you to long for me. I want you to seek me as the good gift. Now, does that remove all of the emotions that I can imagine we feel when we don't get the answer that we were hoping for? When we get a very different answer than we were hoping for?

unknown 11:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

When we get no answer, when we feel silenced, when we feel disregarded. No, it doesn't. I'm not suggesting that that makes us feel better, but I'm suggesting that over and over again, Jesus says, I am the one for you. I am the one to fill you up. I am the one to seek you. And Elizabeth, I'll I'll be the first to be honest, because I know we both can be honest. I'll be the first to be honest and say, that can keep me in a spin, in a swirl of, but God, if you're good, then we'll go this way. You want me to seek you, but how can I seek you if I don't know if you're good? How can I seek you if I don't know if I can trust you? Okay, who am I looking for? I'm looking for the answer in that. I'm looking for the solution in that. Am I looking to God? Is God good? I mean, we can, we can spin. And I mean, I think that's just as a hard truth.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yeah, and I think there's two truths going on at the same time.

Pray Without Ceasing Without Striving

SPEAKER_01 12:33

And that's what was part of the heart of the question that was asked to us was do I keep praying or do I surrender? And the answer is not either or. I think it's both, because in both of these passages we've just read, it says, ask, seek, knock, keep coming, be the widow. Parable says she she got what she wanted because she kept asking. And at the same time, the heartbeat of these two passages is you are praying to a father that is not reluctant, that is not cruel, that is not angry, that is not begrudging you for even asking him things. He's not behind a locked door saying, I'm already in bed. Can you come back tomorrow? I don't want to get up and help you, but fine. I'll answer your question because you've been annoying enough to ask it. That exact cycle you're talking about, Kimberly, is having to trust that God is good. And yet when I have to keep coming back to him and asking him about the same situation that has not changed, if you'll remember last time, God, we talked about this, we were in the same situation we're in right now. And nothing feels like it's moved. It makes you feel like you're badgering him or that he's reluctant or he's somehow in his lazy boy recliner and just can't be bothered to get up and help. But what Jesus is saying over and over in these passages is your father is so good. As good as your father may have been to you on earth, your heavenly father is better. And we have to sit in the tension of that and wrestle with it. And there's another verse that I I struggle a lot with, since we're being honest on prayer, that goes along these lines. It's when you hop over to 1 Thessalonians 5 and it says, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing. That always has hit me at I've got to do it. Like I've got to pray enough. I've got to never stop praying about it. Like it says, pray without ceasing. Then it also then goes on to say, give thanks in all circumstances. We jump over that part. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. And so let's talk a little bit, Kimberly, what we think prayer without ceasing means, because the two parables we've read, plus the scripture, pray without ceasing, leads me more to a place of angst and stress and that it's on me and I've got to do enough rather than a place of rest. So what do we think that really means when it says pray without ceasing?

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah, I think it goes back to the John 15 abiding that we've talked about. I think it's about being in communion with him regularly. It can sound like, Lord, help. You gave some of these last time as well on our podcast where you were talking. It can sound like, Father, I trust you. Jesus have mercy. Holy Spirit lead me. God, I don't understand, but I'm still here. Father, I receive your grace for this moment. It's not panic without ceasing.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah. Good.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

And that is what we what we naturally enter that striving place. Okay, I'm I'm anxious and I'm supposed to pray without ceasing, and I'm not supposed to be anxious, and so I'm gonna pray without ceasing. I'm gonna force myself to pray without ceasing, and I'm gonna pray all the time. And we start to overanalyze it because I think we are striving and we are anxious. And so I think it is a turning, which we've talked about regularly throughout this prayer unfiltered series, it is a turning toward Jesus, a looking toward the Father so that we are again seeing him and not just focused on what we don't have or what we long for. And okay, let's practically think about that for a minute. If if I am praying for, let's just use something crazy. If I'm praying for a white car, I want to get a white car, I'm looking for the right white car to buy. I know I want a white car. I don't really want a white car, I don't know what kind of car I want next. But you know, let's just say I want a white car and I'm focused on praying for this white car, and I'm like, Jesus, give me a white car, Jesus, give me a white car. Then I see white cars everywhere. I think there's a lot of white cars anyway, but I'm gonna see a lot of white cars. Let's, okay, practically, Elizabeth, we've been talking about Broncos lately. If you have a Bronco, no judgment here. I really like the new Broncos, and I was saying something about that to you. And then everywhere we go, like, Camera, there's a blue Bronco, can't really there's another Bronco, there's a Bronco, there's a blue Bronco, there's another Bronco. And you start seeing it. Yeah. It's it's it's again, let's go back to your phone. Let's talk about something for a minute. And I guarantee you, you're gonna have a lot of advertisements later on today about what we're talking about, right? So exactly. We we know that. And so I think this when we are praying for something, and I'm not I'm making it simple, I'm not trying to belittle it, I'm making it simple by talking about a car. We start noticing that more. We start paying attention to that. So if we're praying about a problem, praying about a difficulty, sometimes that can get heightened, and then that causes that anxiousness. And so then we're like, oh, I gotta pray about that more. No, this is where I think that pray without ceasing goes back to that Jesus help me. Those breath prayers that we've talked about in the past, those prayers of turning to our Father and saying, maybe I don't need to pray about that specific thing anymore. Maybe I need to, this is where it's not either or, but maybe this is the moments where I just I surrender to use that word, the desire or the prayer for the thing, the outcome, the result, whatever it is. And we just say, Jesus, I just want you. I want more of you. Now, okay, that's hard. Not gonna pretend that's hard. Because if I'm praying for a white car and I really want a white car and I see a lot of white cars and then I don't get the white car, okay, I'm really disappointed. And if I'm praying, Jesus, give me more of you, then I'm like, well, you gave me more of you, but you still didn't give me the white car. Okay, well, then I still need to look at my heart. Okay. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

I mean, you can't you can't drive Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Right, right. It's not practical. Does that make sense? Yeah. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah. And uh it goes also along with we keep talking about this in this podcast about that prayer is not a formula, it's not a function of our Christianity, it's a relationship. And so I think some of the Sikh ask knock that he's saying, and even when he's saying pray without ceasing, we gotta remember that's sandwiched. First, rejoice in all things and then pray without ceasing, and then give thanks in all circumstances. There's a sandwich here that I don't need to just focus on the middle part of the sandwich, which is the pray without ceasing, which is the striving part. Because if I'm rejoicing in all things, that's not striving. If I'm giving thanks in all circumstances, that is inviting me back to resting in who God is and who he is for me and how he's already shown up for me in the past. And so I think sometimes we we so get in this mindset of it's up to me. I mean, and I am number one person who believes if I don't do it, how is it going to get done? Right? You know, it's it's all on me. I've got, and we do have big responsibilities, and we have people in our lives and things going on that if we don't show up, it doesn't get done. But that can bleed over into our prayer life, which is if I don't pray about this, if I don't stay persistent, if I am not praying without ceasing, if I'm not seek, asking, and knocking, like a widow beating on the judge's door, God's not gonna move. And I just don't think we serve a God who we're gonna get to heaven and go, hey, you know that thing you prayed about for 15 years or 20 years? If you just prayed one day more, I would have answered. I was just waiting for you to like do it enough. I think God is far more interested in the relationship that gets built with us as we pray to him about things. And that's why we spend a lot of time around here talking about praying scripture, praying the names of God, abiding, resting in him, journaling, all the different ways that we we talk about prayer is not just bringing request. That is something we get to do. We get to bring him everything on our hearts. But prayer is so much more than just knocking and knocking and knocking about a request. It's about coming to him and saying, okay, God, what do you want me to know? I mean, what do you want me to know? Even if it's a white car, Kimberly, okay, God, I feel like I would really love to have a white car and I would love for you to provide for me. What do you want to teach me about myself and about you in the midst of me asking you for a white car and broaden the conversation out into a bigger place? Now, the people asking these questions of us, they've got much bigger either physical, mental, other things going on, but we're trying to bring it down to a level where the emotion is not so much in it. But the same is true for that child of yours that you don't think is making right decisions, isn't walking with God the way you want them to, doesn't even know Jesus, doesn't have a relationship with him. Those are big, heavy things that we keep knocking and knocking and knocking on the door of heaven for. But also in the midst of that, God, who do you want to be for me as I grieve over my child not walking with you? What do you want to teach me about my own heart as I grieve through my child not walking with you? There's so much more nuance to this, but I want us to really kind of hone in on that, the comment you just made about surrender and asking at the same time. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think we can live a life full of surrender and still keep asking, if that makes sense. Because it's not about either I surrender and I don't ever talk to God about this again, or I have to keep praying about it if something's gonna

Surrender Without Despair In Suffering

SPEAKER_01 21:35

happen. Those are two very different theologies. And I think what you see in scripture is a different picture. Take Jesus himself in the garden, he prayed. If it's at all possible, I don't want to do this. Let this cup pass from me. I don't want to do this. And in the next breath, but not my will, but your will be done. And so I think we start to pray prayers that model a lot of what Jesus is saying, which is Father, I Really need you to show up for me in this. At the same time, I'm going to choose to rejoice always and find things to be thankful about in this situation until I see you answer this. If you answer it, because there is no guarantee on this side of heaven, things get answered. And there's no guarantee that the answer God gives is the one that we're going to like. And that's where it gets hard.

unknown 22:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

I mean, Paul did the same thing in 2 Corinthians 12 with the thorn in the flesh, right? He was like, All right, God, I'm I brought this to you three times and it'd depart from me. And what did Jesus say? He said, My grace is sufficient, for my strength is made perfect in your weakness. Okay, so Paul asked for it to be removed. God did not remove it, but God also did not abandon Paul. He gave him grace and he told him, That's what I'm giving you. My my grace is sufficient for you. And so it's not negating the strength of the prayer. It's not negating the desire for the outcome or the result, but it's also not negating that that God doesn't hear you. Um, I do believe that we are called to pray and keep praying. We are called, pray without ceasing. We're called to be persevering in our prayer, like those two examples. Keep bringing it to me. And yet, I mean, unless God tells you enough's enough, but if you haven't heard that and you don't sense it and you're just wondering, I think it's like, well, keep bringing it to me. Keep bringing it to me. It's, I mean, we see a lot of those ing verbs in scripture, which are the present active participles, which are the coming and keep coming, the bringing and keep bringing. All the while I'm coming and keep coming, I'm surrendering. All the while I'm bringing and I'm keep I'm continuing to bring, I keep surrendering. All of us have to be encouraged in this. All of us have to wake up every day and change our mindset a little bit to get this. It's the the more mature prayer may look like, Father, I'm still asking you to heal. I'm still asking you for justice, I'm still asking you to deliver, to make wrong things right. And I surrender my timing. I surrender my method. I surrender the outcome to you. You're not giving up, you're not giving up at all. You're gonna keep bringing it to him. You you may wrestle with that, but that's entrusting it to him.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

I mean, Kimberly, as you're talking, I'm thinking about it even in our friendship. Like if something's on my mind and I'm worried about it, and I tell you about it once, that that's great. But I don't after that say, I'm never allowed to tell Kimberly about that again if I'm still bothered by it, because I've already presented that to Kimberly once and she doesn't want to hear it again. Like if I'm going through something hard and every day is hard, you want me to text you and say, hey, I'm still struggling with this day. I'm trusting God as much as I can, but this is still hard. And guess what? Tuesday. This still is hard and I don't like this. And then Wednesday, this is still really hard and I still don't like this. And you would not get to a point, I hope, where you'd be like, Elizabeth, enough. I yeah, you reported it to me the first time. And until things change, I don't need to hear it again. You would be like, I hear you, I got you, I'm praying for you. I understand. This is a tough season. I'm sorry. If best friends can be there for each other and I will listen to you complain about the same thing or tell me about the same thing you're scared about or worried about over and over and over again, because I know sometimes you just need a place to say it. How much more so will our loving father not look at us and go on a clipboard and be like, I'm sorry, you've already reported this to me 400 times and I don't need to hear this from you anymore? He is not a reluctant judge. He is not a neighbor behind a door that says, I'm already in bed, don't bother me. He is a breath away as many times a day as we need to. And some of that is why I use the for Jesus to do box, just to help my own brain put the request in a box to remind myself. But Kim, there's things I put in there several times a day because the heart can only do as much as the heart can do. And the rest of it is God's grace, as you talked about with Paul. I mean, do you think he he was satisfied completely with that answer? Yeah, no. I mean, truly? Because okay, you came to me on the road to Damascus, a light shined out. I've watched, you've used me to call demons out of other people, I've healed people, I've been used to spread your kingdom, and I'm saying, please remove this thing from me. We don't know what the thorn is, and that really doesn't matter. But something was bothering Paul enough to plead with God three times, and God's answer was, My grace is sufficient for you. Now, on the grander scale, I'm sure Paul got it, and I mean it shows up in scripture. We all have learned a lot from it. But at the time, don't you think Paul would be like, Okay, but could you remove the thorn while you give me the grace? Yeah. And and that is the angst that we're allowed to live in. And I think that's part of what we want to give people today is permission that it's okay. You're feeling it. You might as well talk to God about it while you're feeling it. And he's not gonna be up there in heaven with his arms crossed, going, Ah, here she is again. He his grace will meet you in moment by moment. But not all prayers get answered, and that's the hard part.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

And I think sometimes people think of surrender as despair. So it's kind of, well, I'm surrendering now, I'm giving up because God's not gonna help me. But I don't think that's where scripture, when God is saying no, when God's saying not yet, I don't think surrender, surrender is not despair. So how how would you describe and wrestle through that difference with people?

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Honestly, surrender is getting myself out of the way. It is, it's not saying, okay, I'm giving up because you're not going to answer. It's not saying I'm giving up because this is never gonna get any better. It's about going, okay, I've got to choose a different stance. These circumstances may or may not change. They may or may not get better, they may get worse. That that's always fun when you pray for something and the situation gets worse, been there, done that, got the t-shirt. So I'm gonna choose to have a different heart stance in a hard place. And I remember with my dad, as we we walked with him through Alzheimer's, and as you know, that that road doesn't get better until God ultimately heals. I remember having to get out of my bed every morning at one point because I had prayed everything I knew how to pray. Not even, not I I wouldn't even believe in for healing anymore. Just give me enough strength to make it through today because this is so incredibly hard. And I remember I had to get up out of bed and get down on my knees on the carpet right next to my bed every morning and just say, okay, God, I I can't. And I I have tried and I am in the way, and I need to get out of your way, and I need to choose to focus on the other two parts of Thessalonians. I'm gonna rejoice and I'm gonna find reasons to have gratitude. And my spirit and the Holy Spirit, they'll take care of the prayer part. Okay. I I can't, I don't know what else to pray in this situation. I don't even know what I'm gonna face today. So I don't even know what to pray and ask for other than energy, endurance, strength, grace, wisdom, love, supernatural love when things get hard. But I'm gonna have to choose to rejoice always, even though this does not feel like joy at all. And I'm gonna have to choose to find Thanksgiving in the midst of it, and I'm gonna have to surrender the prayer part. And I still, I mean, I would bless my dad's spirit every morning. I bless mine, mom's, everybody's. Like I there were things I would pray, but I had to get to a point where I stopped asking God to fix it and make it better. And that argument, Kimberly, that you're talking about of if you were a good God, you wouldn't allow this to happen and this isn't fair. And it wasn't fair, and it wasn't just, and there was nothing good about it. But surrender to me was not despair. It was let me step off to the side. Let me stop trying to drive the car. Jesus. Maybe I need to get my hands off your steering wheel and just trust that in these moments when I don't think I have anything left, you're gonna show up somehow, and I and I don't get it and I don't like it, but I'm gonna have to choose to surrender because it that's all I had. That's all that's all that was left was surrender at that point. And I think once I finally got to that place, because that was not early in the journey with my dad, that was a long way into the journey. I I kind of felt like God was like, Thank you for finally getting out of my way and allowing me to do what I need to do in you and your mom and your dad and your family and this whole situation. Stop fighting me and just trust me. Because that's what surrender really is trust. It's taking your hands off the wheel, it's letting go of the outcome. I had to stop defining God's goodness equals this situation getting better. God's goodness is not outcome-based. God is good because he is good, because he is good. And that's that's where I had to sit with it. Because there's, I mean, in the life of Jesus, and the even later on in the New Testament, we hear of people who were faithfully serving Jesus that were not healed, that were not, the situation didn't get better. I mean, Paul, being one of a thorn never went away. Every illness, every sickness, every whatever we're walking through is not a billboard advertising that we don't have enough faith and we haven't prayed enough. Sometimes we're gonna walk through hard places because there are things that God wants to show us about himself. I mean, think throughout the Old Testament, Kimberly, all the different ways that he led his people through wilderness and Abraham sacrificed his own son and all of these different places where they went through hard things and then they saw God show up. And then God said, Okay, now build an altar. This is my name. I took you through this circumstance so that you could understand this is who I am, and he would reveal a new name. And I I often read those and go, Well, couldn't you just tell them the name? Did they have to go through the stuff to get to the name? And I think honestly we do. And that's that's the hard part is sometimes we've got to go through the thorns so that we can understand God's

Questions That Guide Discernment

SPEAKER_01 31:33

grace.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

So, Elizabeth, we've clearly talked about the fact that there's not a formula. Sometimes I wish that we wish there were, because it'd be easier to just follow the steps like for the recipe for cooking, right? Just follow ABCD. But God invites us into this ongoing relationship with Him and He invites us into discernment. So when we need to discern whether we keep asking or whether we release it, or where how we sit in the tension of the two that that feel like tension, but really they're married to one another.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

What are some of the questions that you think we can ask to really help guide us through our wrestling with that?

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Yeah, well, first I I think we've talked about this before on on other podcasts. There's some questions we ask. God, is this you? Is this mine to pray for? And what is my part? And then also what is the timing, like for how long? And those are questions that you and God get to sit with and ask. But I would I think I would look more at the fruit. Because it may not be I'm not supposed to pray about this anymore. It may be I'm supposed to pray about this differently. There's another question. It's not just do I keep knocking, seeking, asking, or release it, because that those are the two questions there, you know, do we persist or do we surrender? I think there's a middle ground of maybe I pray about it differently. So I would ask, is the way you're praying about a situation now, does it draw you into deeper communion with God when you do it? Or does it just stir up the panic, the fear, the worry, that that anxious feeling of if I don't pray enough, it's not going to happen? I think you need to ask if you are carrying the outcome. Are you praying thinking it's up to me to make the situation person, whatever it is you're you're looking for, change? And if you feel the weight of the outcome on your shoulders, I think it's time to either take a season where you don't pray about it and spend that time that you would be praying about that specific situation, focusing on who God is for you and who you are in him and abiding and resting and learning what it means to uh take his yoke upon you and learn of him as we're told to do. Or it's time to shift and go, God, I I surrender the outcome of this situation, or I surrender what happens with my child or spouse or family member. I surrender this disease to you. And that's not saying I'm not gonna trust that you're gonna move, but I'm gonna let go of the outcome. Because I think that's where a lot of the angst comes from, is we all do it, myself included. I pray with an intended outcome. Like that's why you ask for something, because you want something specific, right? So in prayer, I often am praying an outcome. There have been seasons where I felt my assignment was to pray about a specific situation for a while. And I remember when God said enough. And that's not because the situation had changed. And honestly, the situation didn't get better after I stopped praying about it. And I was like, well, what was that about? And and what I really sensed in my spirit was there was a season of grace for that particular situation. It's not just me praying about the situation. Specifically, if I'm praying for a person and I'm praying for their life to change, it's just not me praying more about it that's gonna do it. That person has their own relationship with God or without God. They they have their own will, their own emotions, their own autonomy. And so, yes, I pray maybe to push back darkness so they have enough room to breathe to figure it out. But that person still has a choice. In that situation that I was praying about, I had pushed back for two or three years and given as much grace and freedom as I could in that situation. And that person didn't choose to change. And it grieved my heart when I felt God saying, You've done enough. It's time to move on. But I can't explain it in other way than that. I just knew for this season, this is not mine to carry anymore. And I've lost touch with with the people, so I don't know fully the story of what happened, but I do know it didn't get better. And that that one goes in the questions I may want to talk to God about in in a later life. And I'd even say, So then why did you have me pray about it for two years if it didn't change? And I look back now and I can see what God did in me and how much time I spent with him because he and I were talking about that situation. I was like, oh, okay, it was about relationship. It was about us. It wasn't necessarily about them. They had a choice and they could have made it. They chose not to. I've got to be at peace with that.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

In light of that, I also think that's kind of like when you're asking the Holy Spirit, do I need to shift my prayer from take this away from me, remove this from me, or sustain me in this? That's a good one. There are gonna be times where God may say enough when you're praying for a person or whatever, but there may be times where you lean in and you discern with the Holy Spirit, maybe I shouldn't ask you to remove this anymore. Again, not shouldn't, but maybe it's a season where I'm walking through God sustaining me rather than removing it. Kind of like I was talking about earlier when I was saying we can focus a lot on an outcome or something happening. And I think sometimes it's just discerning and asking the Lord, is there a grief here that I just need to honestly bring to you? Because I think a lot of times we have emotions about these things. And sometimes we're bringing our emotions to him, and sometimes we're bringing the request to him so that we can demand control for the outcome, which is another question, right? Like, how can I stop demanding control here? But in that, I think sometimes we fall on a side of bringing our emotions to him or looking at the outcome. And I think again, there's some middle ground of a lot of times if we're focused on the outcome, we need to pause and just listen to him. We've talked a lot about listening prayer and just lean in and listen and say, Jesus, do I just need to be honest with you for for a little while? And do I need to bring my grief to you? Can I, can I keep asking for this thing, this outcome, this result, this person, this hope, this longing? Can I keep asking for that without demanding that you control it and looking for a particular outcome?

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

As we talk about this, I think there's a lot of questions that we can bring to the Holy Spirit. And we can say, give us wisdom, we can do some contemplative prayer exercises, some listening prayer exercises, and hear from him of how do you help me discern and know whether to release it, whether to keep asking, or how to keep doing both. Because we know, for those of you that are listening that are in the middle of these questions and these feelings and these thoughts, we know it's not easy.

A Blessing For Trust And Perseverance

SPEAKER_00 37:58

As we close today, we want to bless you to ask without striving, to surrender without despair. So receive this blessing. Father, we come to you with the ache of unanswered prayer. We bring you the places where we have asked maybe for years for things that we haven't seen yet. We bring you the people that we love who are suffering. We bring you our longing for justice, for healing, for deliverance, for restoration. And while we bring that to you, we confess that sometimes we don't know what to do. We don't know whether we keep praying and asking and persevering or whether we surrender. Teach us to discern.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

And Jesus, do you say for us to ask and seek and knock, and so we will. And at the same time, we will trust that we are yours and that you are a good father. You are a righteous judge. You are about kingdom justice that goes far beyond anything that we could possibly ask or imagine. And God, a lot of us are grieving because it feels like we've walked faithfully with you for many years, and yet this thing doesn't feel answered. And so we trust you and we say it, whether our heart believes it or not. Father, we trust you. You are a good father. You are good and you are kind. And as much as we want you to fix what is broken, we say we want you more, and we will keep coming to you with the desires of our heart. We will keep coming to you as a persistent widow in front of a righteous judge who does not have to be persuaded to move. But we also choose to surrender to your timing. We surrender to your outcomes, we surrender to your methods because God, we're not reading the story of us that you're writing from your perspective. We're we're living in the middle of it, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to us, but we trust you as the ultimate author of our our faith, the one who's known us since you put us in our mother's womb. And we are saying that we're trusting the one who's writing a story that goes far beyond anything that we can understand. So we refuse to believe that you are cruel, and we refuse to believe that you are joking around with us or playing with our emotions, and we receive your nearness today. You are a good father who gives a fish, not a serpent, who gives bread and not a stone, even in places where it feels like you have been silent.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

So we bless your spirit to know that the Father is not reluctant to receive you. We bless you to come boldly to the throne of grace. We bless you to ask and persevere without striving and to surrender and release without despair. We bless you to receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit in every unanswered place. We bless you to know that persistent prayer is not wearing God down, it's staying near to Him in His presence. So be blessed today. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Donate And Follow Along

SPEAKER_01 40:48

This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you. To donate, go to www.thefathersbusiness.com. Be sure to follow us at the Father's Biz on Instagram and Facebook.