This week we are going to try something new! A church member sent me a text recently asking a very honest, thoughtful question, the depth of which greatly encourages this pastor’s heart. He has given me permission to answer his question publicly in hopes that you also will be strengthened, and more deeply rooted in God’s Word.

Question:

“How do we discern ailments/tragedy as something God is using to teach/prepare us for later vs something He has the miracle ability heal/change. I find myself wanting to pray for miracle healing at times but sometimes feel conflicted that I’m not praying for His will be done if reality is that He wants to teach us to lean into Him.”

If I understand the question, here is the dilemma. There are many times when we pray specifically for things such as healing, deliverance, provision, restoration, etc. However, though God often answers our prayers just as we ask him to there are many other occasions when he does not. Marriages end in divorce despite our praying for restoration. Family and friends still get sick and die despite our passionate pleads that they would recover. Suffering is real. Pain can’t be avoided. So how do these undeniable “broken world” realities affect how we pray? If God intends from the beginning of time for a person’s life to end a particular way on a particular day (Hebrews 9:27) and I’m praying for God to heal and spare, am I actually praying against God’s will and in some sense nullifying even the point of my prayer? 

Simply put, how should Christians come to pray for anything in light of the fact that we seldom fully understand God’s specific will in many cases? Let me just offer a few bullet point thoughts to help you wrestle through this challenging issue.

• Since the question was presented specifically in light of praying for healing, let’s begin there. God often chooses not to heal diseases and spare lives from physical tragedy and death despite our prayers. But let me say this with great resolve and without reservation. IT IS NEVER WRONG TO PRAY FOR HEALING, even if God has a greater purpose to be accomplished through sickness, tragedy and death. The greatest example of this that I can call to mind is Jesus’ response to the sickness and impending death of Lazarus (John 11:1-45). Mary and Martha could not have known of God’s “higher purposes” for the sickness of their brother. God seldom, if ever, reveals these providential objectives to us, but they ALWAYS exists. Martha and Mary lived in our world. Their brother was dying and they would do anything in their power to change that. So they called on Jesus, with absolute confidence that Jesus was able to fix this problem. The issue in their minds was not whether or not Jesus as able, but would he be willing?

Listen closely to the Lord’s response when he receives word of his friend’s condition. “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it” (4). Notice that Jesus doesn’t say that Lazarus would not die. He says that death would not be the end of the story.

Be warned, the next statement will challenge you. John says, “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister and Lazarus. THEREFORE, when he heard that he was sick, He then stayed two more days longer in the place where he was” (5-6). Instead of Jesus rushing to the aid of his dear friend, Laz, he delayed two more days not “inspite” of his love for this family, but precisely BECAUSE of his love for them. 

This makes no sense to many of us who mistakenly believe that God’s greatest objective for us is to make us healthy, wealthy, and happy in this world. Many times God certainly heals us and spares us from tragic circumstances because he is good and kind. But there are other times when he allows these same tragedies because of his same goodness and kindness and his commitment to his own highest purpose: God’s glory. 

Jesus would say to his disciples in response to his delayed response to Lazarus, “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe” (15). God did not answer the prayer of Martha and Mary in the way that they would have liked and it was because he had a greater miracle in mind. This is where the rubber meets the road for those of us seeking to faithfully walk in a way that honors Jesus. When he fails to answer our prayers the way that we would like for him to, do we still trust and believe that he is good and kind and ultimately he has a more eternal perspective in mind? And to circle back to our question at hand, how should I pray in light of this? We should pray for all the needs which burden us, and we even pray in a manner that we believe would be good and right. But as we do we have to remember that God is committed to higher purposes than our prayers sometime reflect. Often God’s ways leave us confused and confounded by how he moves in one life, but apparently not another. Remember, Jesus came to the pool at Bethesda and found “a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered…” (John 5:3), but he healed only one. 

• The Bible gives us permission to desperately make our cries and petitions known to God, even when we are uncertain of God’s particular will in each specific case. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6).  Be certain that our good Father desires for us to run to his side as helpless children who believe he is capable of doing whatever we ask, much more than we ourselves desire to do the same (Matthew 7:9-11). Paul would say, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us” (Ephesians 3:20).

Our prayers are always limited by our immaturity and our inability to see with eternal, kingdom eyes. Paul’s profound statement in Ephesians 3:20 is spoken in the context of his prayer that the church in Ephesus would “be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge…”. 

As the church comes to understand more fully the love of Christ and the magnitude of his purposes, which is exactly what Paul is praying for the church, it will revolutionize how we come to pray. 

• God’s purpose in everything – On the authority of God’s Word, I can unapologetically say to you that I know God’s will for you, for us, and in every situation. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son…” (Romans 8:28-29). 

In every answered prayer and unanswered prayer God is at work to shape his people into the image of his Son. Teaching us life lessons is not God’s primary objective, but rather transformation is! “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). 

Daily God is seeking to change how we think and see the world around us. God is working in every detail of my life and those around me to accomplish his one main objective: the renewal of all things. God doesn’t waste pain, suffering, and tragedy. These are indispensable tools which shape us into the image of Jesus (1 Peter 1:6-9, VERY IMPORTANT!).

• How do these biblical truths change how I pray? Only hours before the cross Jesus was praying the most grievous prayer of his life. Jesus, the man, was deeply grieved by the prospects of taking on the penalty of sins of the nations as he cried out, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39). In his humanity, Jesus did not hesitate to express his desire in the moment, just as Martha and Mary had done some time earlier. But at the height of his grief and pain, his kingdom, heavenly perspective changed his praying. He was aware that there was a greater miracle to be accomplished than his own deliverance, thus his prayer took on the very shape of the Father’s desire. 

• Do not hesitate to pour out your heart before your good Father and share honestly with him what you desire to have and see accomplished in your own life and the lives around you. Don’t hold back! Through the years my kids have asked of me some radically outlandish requests, many of which I was powerless to bring to pass. But they believed I could. Pray to your God in this same outlandish way. He is able. He loves it when ask him to do for us or others beyond what we can even imagine. 

• Ask God to transform your praying as you come to know him and his ways more radically through his Word. 

• Ask God to help you to desire His will and embrace His will even when we don’t understand it or when it is something other than what we desire. Pray for healing. Pray for deliverance. Pray for rescue. This is right. But always remember that God’s ways are higher than our own. Sometimes suffering and pain accomplish his purpose much more than happiness and ease. Not my will, but yours be done!