Unanswered Prayer - Prayers that are too big?

We often are encouraged to make our prayers bigger, for God is a great God, and we are told that our prayers are too small. However there are times that our prayers are bigger than our faith. Then we must scale down our prayers to the size that we can really believe, for God does not promise to simply answer prayers, he promises to answer believing prayers.

When Lillie and I made our first mission trip, which was to be ten months long, going into ten countries, the Lord had told us that we were not to ask people for money but trust Him to supply our needs. Voluntary gifts began to come in and we scheduled our trip with the airlines. However the night before we were to leave we still needed $1100 to pay for the tickets. That figure stood like a mountain before us, though we were sure in our hearts, that this ministry was God’s call for us. We became desperate! Then Lillie said, “I dropped all pious phrases and I prayed!”, and then God gave us the means in a most unusual way.

A couple called the day we were to leave and asked if we had the money for the tickets. When I acknowledged that I did not have it they went to the bank and took all their savings of $978 and took cash out of their pockets to make up $1,000 and another couple brought us $100 so we had all we needed for the tickets. The Lord did not need all those religious phrases to persuade Him. Just ask, He had said, and when we did, He did His part.

However while the tickets were paid for, we had less than $35 cash for a ten-month trip. Lillie encouraged me saying that at least we could go as far as New York. We did go there and got several visas. Having come from the west, this was our first trip to the great city. As we had a little time left we started to look at the sights, and saw the Waldorf Astoria hotel of which we had heard before, and thought we could at least see the lobby. We went into the hotel and met a Jewish businessman who asked what we were planning to do. I tried to explain to this prosperous, secular minded, businessman that we were going to minister to missionaries around the world.

He became interested and invited us to go to lunch at the Twenty-One Club. I only learned later that it was the famous restaurant where Jackie Onassis would eat, and we ate there with the few dollars in our pockets. However after we had lunch the new friend said that he could not take us to the airlines, but his chauffeur would do so. As we got into the fancy limousine the man gave me an envelope which I stuck into my inside pocket. But Lillie was curious and asked to see the envelope, and, lo, it proved to be a check for $500, enough to get us well on our way. We believed that God would supply our needs, and had a lot of suggestions how He might do so, but He had his own plan, and asked us only to believe. He does not seem to need our suggestions.

I have attended many prayer meetings where the prayers were long, but faith was small. There was no expectancy to see a miracle happen, just a wish that some day something good might happen. Ministering to many dedicated missionaries around the world where they had long lists of missionaries to pray for I “spoiled” the prayer meeting by asking whom God had asked them to pray for specifically. That took some serious thought and the prayers were whittled down for the ones that God knew who were desperate and in need of believing prayer. He wanted to tell them that, but instead of listening to God, they were following traditional patterns, mostly sincere, but with unbelieving words.

When visiting Ecuador, South America, a missionary wife asked me to pray for her daughter. She told me many things about the disease that her daughter had that I did not understand, but I knew she was seriously sick. I went to her daughter’s bedside and said, “Betsy, do you believe that if I would pray for you now, you would be healed?” “No”, she replied, “there have been so many people that have prayed and I am still sick.” I said, “I can’t believe either, that if I prayed now you would be completely healed of that big disease. What is one of your smaller problems?’ She told me that she could not sleep well. I asked her if she could believe God wanted to give her a good night’s sleep. She said she could believe God for that, and I said I could believe that too. So I asked God for a very small thing, that is, a good night’s sleep for Betsy. In the morning she said that she had slept well. That was great, but I knew she was still sick. Lillie and I traveled on to another country.

Two years later when visiting her parents in the Boston area the mother said, “Did you not know that Betsy was healed of her disease the night you prayed for her?” I said, “No” for I knew that she had been sick for some time after that. “Yes,” she said, “She was sick for eight months after your prayer, but then the doctors decided to take her off of cortisone. When they did that she was found to be completely well, for the cortisone had kept her sick, though she was healed of the disease.”

It was not for me to tell Betsy to go off her medicine; that was up to the doctor. But the disease, incurable at the time, had been completely healed as the result of the tiny, but believing prayer. Now if I had prayed for what we wished, that is complete healing, nothing would have happened, that request was too big for my faith. But when I prayed for that which I could believe, just a good night’s sleep, complete healing took place.

Something similar happened when I took up the battle with Alzheimer’s after Lillie was diagnosed with it. Her brother and sister had both died with the disease, and I did not believe that was the way God wanted us to end our lives. However the Lord did not direct me to pray against the whole disease, He led me to take up the battle against that part of the disease that puts the Alzheimer patient into an institution. That is, not the loss of memory, but the resistance to any kind of help that finally leads to violence, which cannot be handled by the caretaker. I learned how to battle that resistance with discernment and faith until it was completely overcome. Although Lillie’s memory is still short, she has been wonderfully healed. The resistance that had plagued her and troubled me for several years was completely gone. She recognizes me and freely responds to me and is all smiles when I come to visit her. We have a delightful time together every day and our time is like a honeymoon. However I had to limit my prayer to that for which the Lord gave me faith, and not try to tackle that which was too big for me at the time.

It is true that there are times when our prayer is too small, for God knows that we have more faith than we are exercising, but there are other times when our long prayers need to be whittled down to the measure of our faith. Remember, God does not simply promise to answer prayers, He promises to answer believing prayers.

Copyright © Herman Riffel, March 2004