Friday 9/19/14

Our second LifeTeen Question of the Week comes to us from Jack Hayes. Jack asks:

God is obviously not a wish list that we can pray for what we want and expect it to arrive. However we believe that he does hear and answer our prayers. If millions of people pray for things like an end to hunger or world peace every day, why doesn't God answer us? Does he ignore our prayers or chose not to act?


Good question, Jack. You are right to preface it with your statement about God not being a “wish list.” I always like to say that God isn’t Santa Clause. The idea is the same. So why doesn’t God always grant the things for which we pray, and if He doesn’t necessarily grant what we want, then what’s the point of prayer at all?

Isaiah 55:8 gives us some insight into your question. It states, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord.” The book of Job features a similar passage where God rebukes Job for demanding answers from God about why he is suffering unjustly. God’s ways are a mystery. That does not sit well with most of us. When most people are presented with a mystery they immediately try to figure it out. That is not the right response to the mystery of God’s ways. That mystery needs to be approached humbly with the knowledge that we will not understand until we meet God in Heaven.

God’s plan is God’s plan, and though He cares and listens to our prayers, His plan is still the best. Every week when we have our petitions at Mass, Father Chris always asks God to “hear and answer our prayers if they be according to Your will for us in this life.” That last part is important. Even the Our Father gives agency over to God, saying “ Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Besides, if God did answer all of our prayers, then wouldn’t that essentially make us God, able to do whatever we wanted just by thinking about it?

The idea that you will get whatever you want if you pray hard enough is dangerous and wrong, yet feel-good preachers all over the world are constantly saying it. The effects, particularly on young people, can be devastating. I remember hearing a story of a young child whose little sister had a mental handicap. He went to Sunday School where a presenter quoted 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.” The “it” in the passage refers to spiritual gifts, graces, and virtues, not to temporal (earthly) goods. The speaker, however, misused the quote to turn God into Santa.

When the boy got into the car after class, he began to pray frantically. When his mother asked why he was praying, he excitedly told her that the speaker said that if he prayed hard enough, God would “fix” his sister. In fairness to the speaker, part of her message was probably missed by the boy, but the overall theme of the message was flawed to begin with.

When God’s plan is different from our own plan, it is easy to become discouraged. Still, we must have faith that God’s plan is the best plan. I have often used the analogy of comparing the world to an enormous tapestry, where each person’s life is a single thread. Some are long, and some are short. Some play a prominent role in the middle, and others are a detail near the edge, but all are important and necessary. Each thread comes into contact with several others, but there are many more it never sees, and so its picture of the tapestry is incomplete. Only when we step back can we see the beautiful work of the weaver. It is my hope and belief that when we die, we will see the wonderful tapestry of human history in its proper perspective, and then we will understand.

Even when our prayers are not answered in the way we would like they are still worthwhile. Prayer helps us cope with difficult situations. It forces us to confront issues we might otherwise suppress or ignore. Prayer also gives us grace. Through prayer God grants us spiritual gifts, graces, and virtues. He gives us the ability to deal with the difficult situations in our lives. He inspires us to action. He renews and refreshes our spirits. He breathes His life into our hearts and His will into our minds. Prayer does not always change God’s plan, but it does change us.


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