By Hal Pickus · · 5 min read
When God feels silent: praying through unanswered prayer
You've prayed about it. A lot. You've prayed the bold way and the desperate way and the just-please way. And nothing. The job didn't come, the diagnosis didn't change, the person didn't soften, the silence stayed silent. If that's where you are — wondering if anyone is actually listening — you're in older company than you think.
The Bible lets you say it
We sometimes act like questioning God is the opposite of faith. The Psalms disagree. David — the man after God's own heart — prayed this, and the Holy Spirit put it in the Bible on purpose:
How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
Psalm 13:1
"How long?" He asks it over and over. God wasn't offended. He left the question right there in the songbook so you'd know you're allowed to ask it too. Silence is not a sin. Say the honest thing.
When the answer doesn't match the request
Sometimes the hardest part isn't silence — it's that the answer seems wrong. Here's the verse to sit with, even though it's not the comfortable kind:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8–9
That's not a brush-off. It's God saying there's more going on than you can see from where you're standing. You're reading one page; he's holding the whole book. That doesn't make the waiting easy. It makes it bearable.
What God often gives instead of the answer
Paul begged God three times to take something away. God said no — but he said something else, and it became one of the most quoted verses in the Bible for a reason:
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2 Corinthians 12:9
Not the thing Paul asked for. Something better and harder: enough grace to stand inside the thing. Sometimes the unanswered prayer is how you find out that God himself — not the outcome — was what you most needed.
A prayer
God, I've prayed about this until I'm tired, and I don't understand the silence. I'm not going to pretend I do. But I'm not walking away. If you're not going to change the situation yet, then give me enough grace to stand in it. Help me trust that you see what I can't. Amen.
Keep praying anyway
Don't let the silence talk you out of praying. Keep showing up. The waiting itself is doing something in you, even when nothing is moving on the outside:
Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.
Psalm 27:14
"Wait, I say, on the LORD." He repeats it, like he knows you need to hear it twice. And don't wait alone — bring the prayer you're tired of praying by yourself to a few people who will keep praying it when you don't have the strength.