The Value of Unanswered Prayer

Moses said to the LORD, "Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,' to the land that you swore to give their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, 'Give us meat, that we may eat.' I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness." -Numbers 11:11-15

Tonight is Prayer Service at our church. Some will gather and offer up prayers requests for perceived needs and praises to the Lord for who he is and how he has answered our requests. This is a regular practice of our church and many believers around the globe. We often gauge the value of these prayer times by how many times God has said "yes" to our requests. In short, if we see many affirmative answers, we conclude that the Prayer Service is valuable and worth going to. Unfortunately, we often conclude that if our requests are not being answered, that means there that God must not hear us and there is therefore little or no value in continuing the practice of prayer. But I'd like to submit to you that unanswered prayers don't mean that God isn't listening. And unanswered prayers certainly don't mean that we should give up praying.

In these verses in Numbers 11, we see Moses approach the Lord with his troubles and requests. The Children of Israel were complaining again. Moses was taking the brunt of their complaints and was feeling quite overwhelmed. As he lays out his burden before the Lord, he asks the Lord if it was meant for him to bear the burden of the people alone, to kill him at once. This is an honest prayer. Moses can't take the heaviness, the extreme weight of the complaining, the stress of trying to meet the needs of all these people. So he simply asks the Lord to kill him to spare him the pain of this great burden. 

Have you ever prayed this way? I know that I have. Maybe the circumstances were a little different. Maybe I was not praying concerning the complaints of people. But I have prayed in times of heaviness and sorrow and stress that the Lord would spare me the pain by "taking me out". I don't know about you, but as I look back on these times I sure am glad that God didn't answer all my prayers with a "yes". I often don't pray for things as I ought. I often pray selfishly and pray for solutions that are feasible only in my mind. God wants us to pray, and he wants us to pray honestly, but he wants us to pray with a "Your will be done" attached to all our requests.

Unanswered prayer has more value than you think. Moses didn't get a "yes" answer to his request here. God didn't kill him. Instead, God appointed 70 elders to help Moses bear the burden of the people. God gave an answer according to Moses need, rather than giving a blanket answer to his misinformed request. The Lord does the same for us today. He hears our prayers and sees our needs. When our prayers don't align with our needs, he sovereignly meets the needs instead of answering the prayer we pray. You might pray for what you think is best, but then God provides something far better. Moses was not meant to bear the burden of leading alone, but the answer was not to take Moses out of the picture. No, the answer was to give support and encouragement through a team of leaders. An answer far better than the request, wouldn't you say?

Yes, tonight is Prayer Service at church. Yes, God will hear our prayers. And yes, God will meet our needs. But sometimes our prayers and our needs are not the same thing. Don't be disappointed by unanswered prayers. Be thankful that God didn't answer your every request. Chances are, you might not be happy with the results if he did.