Praying for a Miracle

By Mathew Block

When I was three years old, I nearly died when a physician misdiagnosed a case of appendicitis. Later, when a second doctor examined me and found me deathly ill, I was rushed several hours away to the city for emergency treatment. The situation was so serious that the doctors there didn’t have time to make a more careful determination of the problem, instead opting for emergency exploratory surgery. A long scar from an inch above my navel down to my groin is a palpable reminder of how close to death I came.

My parents were not churchgoers at the time. But amidst the fear and sorrow of the situation, they turned back to God in prayer. They prayed that I might be saved. And—during the months of recovery and complications that followed—they prayed for my continued healing.

That the surgeons were able to find and correct the problem in time was truly an answer to prayer. But it wasn’t just an answer to that prayer. Yes, I was made well—but God did more than that. As St. Paul writes, God is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). My parents prayed that I would get well. But He further used that opportunity to bring them and my family into the Church. If I hadn’t faced that health scare as a child, it is unlikely that I would be a member of the Church today. 

We know of course that God is capable of doing great and incredible things; Scripture is full of these stories. And there are many passages in the Bible which encourage us to pray for miracles of our own: “The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick” (James 5:15). “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed… nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20). “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:14).

And so, in faith we lay our own prayers before God, asking Him for help in things both small and big. Sometimes we get the answer we want.

And so, in faith we lay our own prayers before God, asking Him for help in things both small and big. Sometimes we get the answer we want. This happens pretty regularly for little things—like finding our misplaced keys. Sometimes it’s for big things—like getting a new job. At other times, it seems almost miraculous—like the full recovery of family member injured in an accident.

Sometimes, though, we do not get what we ask for. Sometimes we pray—and pray earnestly—without it seeming to do anything. We might pray for a terminally ill friend, for example. And yet our friend dies. Is it our fault? Did we not pray hard enough—believe hard enough?

Certainly, some preachers of the so-called “prosperity Gospel” want us to believe so. They say that if we just pray the right prayer, if we just “name it and claim it,” if we just “sow a seed” (that is, send in a big cheque to the right ministry), then God will bless us with everything we ask. 

Most of us can see through that kind of charlatanism. Sending a television evangelist your money isn’t going to buy God’s favour; He isn’t a wishing well, giving you whatever you want just because you throw in a coin. Nor can you earn a positive answer simply by “praying harder” or “believing harder”—as if faith was a matter of our own works.

But if it isn’t a lack of faith that results in unanswered prayers, what is it? We can start to have deeper doubts. Isn’t God listening to us? Doesn’t He care? You can end up feeling, as the hymnwriter suggests, “that God hath cast thee off unheard” and that others who seem to lack nothing “must surely be of God preferred” (LSB 750:5).

But just because we do not always receive what we pray for is not proof that either our faith or God are somehow lacking.

These are doubts that many of us face at some point in our lives. But just because we do not always receive what we pray for is not proof that either our faith or God are somehow lacking. God is indeed able, as we read  earlier, “to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). But the “more” in this sentence doesn’t always mean more of what we expect. Sometimes it means His answer to our prayer will be entirely different than what we wanted.

“PRAYING HANDS,” Albrecht Dürer, 1508

We pray for a sick friend to be saved and yet she dies. We assume as a result that God has not listened to our prayers. But sometimes God chooses to save our friend not by healing her but by welcoming her home to Himself—by delivering her from the sorrows of this world into the bliss of heaven. “The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart,” Isaiah writes. “Devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace” (Isaiah 57:1-2). A miracle has indeed taken place. It’s just not the one we asked for.

That knowledge doesn’t take away our own sense of loss, of course. But it is a reminder that God can answer our prayers in ways that are truly good even when they are different than what we hoped. 

Are we wrong then to pray for healing for our sick friends? By no means! St. Paul encourages us: “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). But as we pray, we must remember to make the words of Jesus our own: “Nevertheless, not my will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).

Whatever need we face, whatever concern we have, we do right to “take it to the Lord in prayer,” as the old hymn goes (LSB 770). But we also make room in our prayers to recognize that God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). We don’t know what is best for us. “We do not know what to pray for as we ought,” St. Paul writes (Romans 8:26). That is why we need the Holy Spirit to come alongside us and pray on our behalf.

This is also why we pray “in Jesus’ name.” We can fall into the habit of saying these words by rote. But they aren’t just a formulaic way to end our prayers. When we say these words, we are recognizing that it is only because of Jesus that our prayers are presented to God at all (Romans 8:34). And if it is through Jesus that they are to be presented, then what we pray for must also be in keeping with His will. And we just don’t always understand the mysteries of that will.

Sometimes God answers our prayers in ways that confuse us. Sometimes He answers in ways that anger us. And yes, sometimes, if our prayers run contrary to His will, He simply answers: “No.”

Sometimes God answers our prayers in ways that confuse us. Sometimes He answers in ways that anger us. And yes, sometimes, if our prayers run contrary to His will, He simply answers: “No.” “You ask and do not receive,” St. James cautions us, “because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3).

But sometimes the answer is a straightforward, glorious yes. When our prayers align with the will of God, when what we hope for is what God brings about, then we can and should give thanks to Him with all gratefulness—whether the request is a small one (finding our lost keys, for example) or something inexplicable in human terms (the healing of a terminally ill friend, for example). Our God is indeed a God of miracles. He still works them today, and it is not wrong to pray for one.

In fact, we are continuously surrounded by miracles, though we do not recognize them. Every morning that you awake is a miracle; you might just have easily died in the night. Every day that you have enough to eat is a miracle; famine might just have easily denied you your daily bread. Every time that you recover from a cold is a miracle; you might just have easily succumbed to disease.

And in the Church we are surrounded by even greater miracles than these. Everyday, the Church witnesses the miracle of the dead brought back to life, as sinners are converted through the hearing of God’s Word.  Everyday, the Holy Spirit comes to claim and indwell children who are baptized into the name of God. Everyday, Christians find forgiveness from sins as they repent and seek mercy from God the Father. Everyday, God imbues earthly bread and wine with the presence of Christ’s very real body and blood.

Everyday, the Church witnesses the miracle of the dead brought back to life, as sinners are converted through the hearing of God’s Word.

These are miracles that we take for granted. But they are miracles nonetheless! They are moments when God reaches down to us in power and touches our lives in tangible ways.

Importantly, they also all point us back to Jesus Christ and His sacrifice upon the cross. For it is here, in the death of Christ for sinners, that we see the ultimate proof of God’s love and goodness towards us (Romans 5:8). It is in Jesus, crucified and risen again, that we truly understand God’s good and gracious will for us.

When our prayers are not answered in the way we hope, when we doubt that God is even listening to our prayers or that He cares for us, we must look back to Christ. For in Him we see the greatest miracle of all. We see His divine power, yes—God incarnate dying and rising again—but we also see His love. And it is this love which comforts us and encourages us when our prayers are answered in ways other than we hoped.

There are no fruitless prayers. Everything asked for in faith is heard by God. And ultimately, He will give us more than we ask or dream. He will give us heaven. He will give us Himself—and that is the ultimate answer to all our prayers. “For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him,” we read. “That is why it is through Him that we utter our Amen to God for His glory” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

So be it, Lord. Amen.

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Mathew Block is editor of The Canadian Lutheran and communications manager for the International Lutheran Council.

Cover photo by philiphoppe on LutheranStockPhotos.com.

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