Note that this section is titled “Seemingly Unanswered Prayers.” One of the most important things to realize in the journey toward a more effective prayer life is not only that prayers won’t always get answered in ways that you logically understand or initially hope for, but that it’s a good thing that they don’t. Yes, sometimes prayers don’t give us the answer for which we’re looking. But sometimes they give us something far more precious—perhaps a greater understanding of our options and roles in life, or even a greater understanding of the true purpose of prayer itself.

Realize That Your Perspective Is Limited

At any given moment, you may truly believe that you know what’s best for your life and the lives of those around you. But the truth is that no one can see the big picture in the isolation of one moment. So when prayers do not produce exactly what you desire, do not assume those prayers have gone unanswered. That is not the case. When you think about it, the lack of a perceptible “yes” is not the same as the lack of an answer. There is always an answer, whether it is revealed as a physical result, a thought, a feeling, or a new awareness. Do your best to look for more than “yes” answers, and try listening and feeling, as well. In other words, open yourself up to alternative answers.

Often, the lack of an answer—meaning a “yes” that we readily comprehend—is an answer itself. It means that things cannot follow your plan because your plan, in the end, is not compatible with God’s design. God is not being mean; God, the Absolute, is maintaining a universe and fostering each person’s growth toward divine awareness.

Through prayer, you place yourself within the timeless and infinite aspects of existence. It follows, then, that in seeking answers to prayers, some answers will have more to do with a larger scheme of time and place than with the immediate scheme. If your desires are not met in prayer, you must make an effort to further widen your perspective, and to acknowledge that there must be a reason—a good reason—why the universe is unfolding as it is. The healthiest approach is to accept that there is an element of mystery to life, and then learn to cherish that mystery as a teacher.

You will get help during your hours of need if you continue to pray, and if you accept that help may come in an unexpected form. Perhaps your prayers can’t bring about, for example, the physical healing of your child or the prevention of a car accident. But they can help you understand that things happen for a reason, that every event can teach you something valuable. Plus, tragedies are easier to cope with when you have faith that you are not suffering the pain alone. The sense of interconnectedness and purpose that is fostered by the practice of prayer ultimately makes coping with “unanswered” prayers much easier.

Don’t Refuse the Alternatives

If you maintain a very rigid idea of how needs should be answered, you close yourself off to countless possibilities. Let’s take, for example, the case of Alice, who lost her arm in a motorcycle accident. She prayed and prayed that the surgery to reattach her arm would be successful. However, critical damage to the nerves and tissues prevented the limb from being even potentially functional. Alice, understandably traumatized, would not hear of any other solution. She refused an artificial limb, even though technological advances had already produced prosthetic arms that could help her do everything from driving, to cooking, to brushing her daughter’s hair. Alice was furious that her devout prayers were not answered, and would not settle for any other help. Instead, she settled into the notion of being abandoned by God and cheated by fate.

Eventually, Alice realized that she had two choices. She could dwell in depression and reap further health problems, or she could once again answer that need to communicate with God. There was a wound deep inside of her that could not be healed by therapy sessions or talk show television. So she simply started “having it out” with God. Alice would sit in her room and argue with God, telling Him how upset she was over the loss of her limb, how disappointed she was that God did not answer her prayers.

Finally, when all words were used up, Alice started to listen. Her mind opened up to other possibilities, and she realized that her prayers did not go unheard. There were countless loving people who surrounded her and became extra hands during her times of needs. Furthermore, Alice realized that she had turned her back on technological advances that were all part of a developing universe—a universe that knew her needs even before her accident! There were plenty of choices that Alice had, and she had chosen the worst one—to refuse all alternatives. Once her perspective was broadened, Alice found that she had received more than one response to her prayers. She had received a range of truly helpful answers!

Alice now counsels people to remain open-minded to alternative answers. Although we often insist that there is one right way, there are usually several right ways. You may have to accept another solution than originally hoped for, and it may be more challenging, but you’ll often learn a lot of lessons in the meantime. Upon accepting a prosthetic limb, Alice learned to highly value the work of health technicians and technical engineers. She found new respect for people with severe physical challenges, and found new community with them. She learned to treasure the little things in life so much more, like the way it feels to hold a child within her arms, or to run her hand through the water in a warm pool. Alice’s life was greatly enhanced when she decided to open herself up to more than a simple “yes” answer to her prayers.

Learn to Look for the Lesson

Have you caught yourself letting anger take you for a really long ride? Did you think God just said “no” for the fun of it? You’ve had a bone to pick with God on several occasions, haven’t you? Sure, we all have. Now, consider this: When you are primed to challenge your notion of God—ready to take a fist to heaven—why not challenge yourself instead? Remind yourself that there’s a reason why the answer to your request was not a simple “yes.” And then, instead of shutting God out, look for that reason.

Alice, discussed previously, had to go through a long battle with despair, doubt, close-mindedness, and anger before reaching her ultimate state of peace. She fought alternatives tooth and nail, then directed her angry thoughts at God, and finally quieted her soul enough to listen. While that chain of events is not uncommon, and may be impossible to avoid, it can be shortened if you train yourself to look for the lesson from the very beginning.

Yes, it sounds hokey, hackneyed, and trite. Yet according to the greatest spiritual teachers, we’re on this earth to learn lessons—we fundamentally want to love and grow and create. Perhaps the fact that the prayer was not answered exactly as you imagined is God’s way of reminding you that you’re trying to control too much. Maybe you are being too close-minded. Consider the story of Joe and Hannah, who prayed for years that their desire to have a baby would be fulfilled.

For eight years, Joe and Hannah begged God for a child, thinking that the right number and combination of prayers would win them this incredible gift. Later on, in hindsight, the couple realized that they used prayer specifically to get what they wanted, how they wanted. And the answer from God seemed to be a repeated “no.” That didn’t change. Joe and Hannah never conceived a baby.

Finally, the couple accepted the fact that they would not be biological parents. But instead of railing in permanent disappointment, Joe and Hannah looked for a message in this apparent “no.” They decided that they were not being refused, but being called to learn more about themselves and their special mission—their mission as adoptive parents. All of their lives, Joe and Hannah had held strict notions of family. Both coming from large families, they had taken the presence of children as a given. Furthermore, they had understood the conception of children as a personal achievement. But after their experience, Joe and Hannah realized that not conceiving a child had nothing to do with how good or bad they were as people, and everything to do with the journey that they were assigned in life. God needed Joe and Hannah to give life to children who were without parents. Ultimately, they adopted two children.

The situation that at one time had caused Joe and Hannah so much grief now became a wonderful opportunity to bring a group of souls together. “We were meant to be a family. Now I know that things happened just the way that they were supposed to happen,” says Hannah. Joe adds, “We were trying to design everything about our lives according to cookie-cutter mentality, as though we had to follow a blueprint that we had sketched years ago. Letting go of our strict demands in prayer helped us become more open and peaceful, and ultimately made us parents! If we hadn’t decided to look for a lesson in our pain and then grow from that lesson, we never would have ended up with two children who have completely fulfilled us.” The “no” answer that frustrated Joe and Hannah actually opened the door to a soul-satisfying mission.

From Joe and Hannah’s story, we learn to probe why things happen the way they do. There will not always be a simple answer, but there will always be a lesson from which we can learn. In his book The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis explains that a certain amount of pain and need is necessary in order for us to avoid attaching ourselves to this temporary world too much. God offers us a beautiful earthly life, replete with moments of love, joy, and fulfillment. Thus, the soul knows how desirable true happiness and unity is. But if life were too easy, we’d want to stay here; we’d get attached to all the luxuries, and forget that we are on a search for completion. Stagnating in our satisfactions would hardly help us develop into something better. So disappointments such as “unanswered” prayers may actually be opportunities for us to reevaluate life, to avoid nestling into one place and stunting our growth, and to determine if we are still actively working toward the greater good. Thus, we are more willing to work within the cycle of life, to accept the pain with the pleasure as a more wholesome experience, and to let go of obsessive control.

Remember that we live with a limited day-to-day perspective. In the larger picture, we know, for example, that if everyone were healed from every physical sickness, the world would be overcrowded and incapable of sufficiently providing for its inhabitants. We also know that if every whim were answered, we’d incur just as many problems in the long run because we’d create new difficulties. Therefore, it makes sense that not everything we wish and pray for will turn out as we want. So try looking for the lesson before hitting rock bottom. It will make life a lot easier.

Remind Yourself of the Purpose of Prayer

We have a habit of telling children, “When you get older, you’ll understand why I’m saying ‘no.’” Well, perhaps when we become more spiritually mature, we’ll understand why certain things didn’t turn out the way we so desperately hoped and prayed they would. Until then, have trust and faith, and know that prayers never go to waste. Whether we believe in a God who hears and answers prayer, or a greater Absolute into which we tap when we pray or meditate, the point of prayer is to open our perspective, to expand our vision, to change ourselves. That way, prayer helps us to cope better, no matter what the outcome. When we pray effectively, we find that the answers are less about us, and more about the willingness to see more and see farther.

There is a reason for all occurrences, and a way to get through every single situation. Prayer makes it easier, not necessarily easy. Just try to remember that prayer is not about changing God’s will. It is about changing our approach to reality. Take the example of Francine, a widow whose only son died of AIDS ten years after being infected by a blood transfusion. Francine admits that for the first couple of years after her son’s diagnosis, her prayers were comprised of tearful begging that her son would not die. She pleaded with her God that He would allow her child to live long enough so that a cure could be found. She hoped for a spontaneous healing. Yet the virus manifested in her son’s body, and after ten long years of illness and medical experimentation, he was clearly losing his battle for life.

At this moment, which seemed the most crucial of all, Francine took a sharp turn in her prayer life. Realizing that she had been praying to keep her son in a place of hardship, Francine actually began to pray, “Thy will be done, God. Please liberate my son’s soul from this illness.” She started to see the bigger picture, and realized that his death was not about failure on her part or science’s part, but about freedom from the suffering that this world holds, in one way or another, for everyone. Francine was aware that she had been praying for the answer that would make her happiest. She had prayed for her son to stay alive because she didn’t want to let go. She now knew that it would be far better to tell her son that he should allow himself to pass into the next life. And she did. One night, in the hospital, Francine whispered into her son’s ear that it was okay to let go. She told him that she would be all right. Her son died that night, and Francine found herself in an amazing state of peace.

Francine confirms that her own prayer life developed through this tragedy. Without God’s grace, she claims that she would have never been able to let her son go. And without conversing with God, Francine believes she would never have attained this spiritual maturity. “I was praying in a very close-minded way. But at least I was praying. That kept the lines of communication open with God. In other words, God was a real presence in my life, even when I was praying more for me than anything else. Over the course of time, watching my son’s courage in the face of illness and hearing my own desires to keep him in this world, I began to listen as much as I spoke to God. And in listening, new vision was granted to me. I saw the temporary nature of this world and its suffering, and I was able to let go.”

Try Praying Differently

If you’ve noticed that a great many of your prayers seem to go unanswered, and that you are not having a satisfying prayer experience, it may be time to reevaluate the way you are communicating with God. In Why Prayers Go Unanswered, author John Allan Lavender helps the reader look at what she may be doing wrong. First, ask yourself, “Am I attempting to barter with God?” God is not running an auction, granting favors to the highest bidder. If you find yourself slipping into that type of mentality, realize that you are praying as a means to an end. You are not growing and changing in the moment.

Second, when you fail to receive a favorable answer, stop to investigate whether your own actions caused the negative outcome. Were you being selfish in your requests? Were you being a control freak? Perhaps you even had a lack of faith that God would respond. In that state of negativity, you may not have been receptive to God’s answer.

Also consider whether or not you were a partner with God in prayer. You may not have made the necessary efforts to create a positive outcome. A lot of people leave all the work to God. But God has ordained us with a divine nature to cocreate. We must take part in bringing about better and more satisfying lives for ourselves. Prayer life is not about magically obtaining favors; it’s about diligent effort to seek out the right path—about combining our divine energies with those of our Source to bring about change.

And did you persevere long enough, or did you give God a few days and then call it quits? Patience and perseverance are so important in prayer life. Andrew’s story of perseverance is one that inspires us to stick with the practice of prayer. At the age of thirty-two, Andrew found himself in a very common situation: He was lonely for a wife and family. So Andrew tapped into the spirituality that he had been practicing on and off since youth. He decided to put efforts toward praying for his future.

Andrew knew that he shouldn’t just ask God for a wife and then wait for her to come knocking on the door. He developed his prayer life as a means of learning more about himself, his needs, and the insight into other people that is necessary to truly love someone. He thought about prayer and its power, and realized that most of the power comes from within—it’s about re-finding the answers. So instead of begging, Andrew prayed to God that his eyes would be opened to the right type of woman, that he would grow in maturity and become a man who was capable of great love, and that he would know the right person when he saw her. Andrew prayed like this for four years, sometimes becoming discouraged, but always returning to prayer. Why? Because he knew that prayer was more about developing himself and learning about his role in this world, than about finding a magic answer to a desire.

At age thirty-six, Andrew married Elizabeth, a woman whom he had met just a year before. Because of the introspection and development that had occurred during his “conversations with God,” and due to the patience that Andrew exercised in waiting for the right person, he found a wonderfully compatible friend and lover in Elizabeth. “It took four years of talking with God about where I should look, and when I should move, and how I would know who the right one was. But the perseverance and patience paid off. I have found the person with whom I will go through the rest of this life. Instead of making the universe abide by my timetable, I allowed the right situation to unfold over time.” And by the way, at forty, Andrew now has two beautiful little boys, as well.

We don’t need to focus on a very specific goal or fill our minds repeatedly with a certain image to have our prayers answered. What if Andrew had prayed that he would find this perfect woman—a woman of a specific size, color, and personality—within one year? At the end of that year, he would be likely to either choose a woman who was not right, or get angry at God for “not listening.” It seems that the most effective prayer technique is simply to put yourself in the presence of the person or problem about which you are praying. Feel love, compassion, and sincere concern. Ask God to tend to the situation, bringing divine energy to heal or harvest, whatever is necessary. But don’t lock yourself into a specific, limited answer. You are praying optimally by just blessing that being or intention with love and care. The fact that you are open-minded in your prayer approach, not negative and demanding, will help you accept the natural progression of the situation, and respect God and the universe for its greater plan.

Don’t let anger get the best of you when it feels as if your prayers have gone unanswered. Instead, consider alternatives and learn from what at first seems denial or refusal. Try to figure out the why behind the “no.” Often, you’ll come to the conclusion that the answer is not “no,” but “not yet,” or “you’ll see more clearly soon.”

SPIRITUAL DRY SPELLS

In general, prayer becomes increasingly effective and easier to practice as it becomes a natural part of your day. Countless spiritual leaders advise that the more you pray, the better you will understand God’s answers, gain insights into the prayer process, and get to know yourself. However, it is also very common to go through dry spells during which you feel that no one is listening and that your prayers are futile. These are not necessarily triggered by traumatic events or seemingly unanswered prayers. They can just occur, unprovoked and unexpected. Interestingly, a number of different cultures use the same metaphor for spiritual dryness: the desert. Another popular metaphor for this state of spiritual difficulty—one originally coined by Saint John of the Cross—is the dark night of the soul. It is during the time in the desert, or during the dark night, that prayer becomes most challenging, and that persistence and patience are the only things that keep a person going.

Realize That Dry Spells Are Common

Even the greatest of spiritual teachers had periods of doubt, moments of despair, and times when they felt utterly abandoned and alone. For example, think of Jesus Christ’s words on the cross, soon before His death: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Some would argue that this man—according to Christian belief, this God-Man—had a painful and very natural moment of despair in His greatest need. Isn’t it human to cry out in pain and loneliness at times? Yet, Jesus fulfilled His personal mission, and to many people today, He serves as a divine example of love, courage, and holiness.

The Bible’s Book of Psalms, which is known for its insights into common human experience, addresses the “dark night” on several occasions. Consider these lines from Psalm 13, a psalm of David: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?” Similarly, an excerpt from Psalm 88 reads: “But I, O Lord, cry out to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. O Lord, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me?”

And consider Siddhattha Gotama, the Buddha, who clung to several teachers during his spiritual search, and was disappointed each time. The repeated attempts at finding his way were certainly challenging. Gotama tried several paths before he succeeded. In fact, he practiced severe asceticism for a number of years, including certain forms of self-torture such as food deprivation, harsh breathing techniques, and self-inflicted pain. Eventually, he abandoned these ways for a more moderate path and, on that middle road, found enlightenment. The hard knocks were definitely “desert moments,” but his persistence paid off. Gotama ended up forging a life philosophy for billions of people who followed.

All of us go through times of discouragement and moments of doubt. Sometimes this happens at the beginning of our spiritual journeys, and sometimes it happens after our spirituality has matured. Desert times seem almost natural to us, as human beings who are subject to fears, numbness, fatigue, distraction, and emotion. The best thing to do is trust that a spark of insight will ignite in due time, and that perhaps the moments of darkness will, in some way, serve us better in the long run by calling us into a deeper silence and causing a greater hunger. The greater hunger will, in turn, make us capable of greater fulfillment.

Understand Why Dry Spells Occur

What do these dry spells mean? Do they signify anything? First, they could be precursors to a time of spiritual growth. Often, when we move from one stage in prayer life to another, we experience pain, discomfort, or apathy. The anticipation of change—perhaps more simply called fear—causes some resistance toward prayer. We unconsciously shut down because we know that the leap ahead is going to require greater courage, effort, and responsibility. So when you come upon a dry spell, realize that it may be the trench over which you must jump to reach a better place.

A dark night of the soul might also signify a need for renewal in more than one area of life. Maybe the stresses of life are piling up—job tensions, family worries, or relationship difficulties. When we overextend ourselves physically, mentally, and even spiritually, we often cause a general malaise and fatigue that can trigger a dark night. Reevaluating our daily lives and commitments may, in turn, illuminate such periods of darkness.

Whether a spiritual dry spell occurs as a result of upcoming changes in spiritual maturity or simple fatigue, there’s no doubt that the experience can be harrowing. So the following section offers a few survival tips.

Surviving the Desert

When the spiritual desert stretches out before you—when you find yourself running out of steam, words, and ideas for your prayer life—first remember that you are not personally lacking something, nor are you alone. Doubt, fear, even the temporary dulling of passions are part and parcel of being human. Furthermore, you have more power than you think to overcome such troubles.

Second, exercise persistence. Why keep praying? Why not assume that you need “some time away” from God, or that prayer is simply not working? Because the problem is not God; it is your perspective, your anxiety, maybe even your growth process. And by continuing to pray, you will give yourself opportunities to change. The lines of communication with God will remain open, and as a result, you will increase the odds that you will listen and learn where you need to go from here.

Third, try praying through spiritual readings. While in the desert of prayer life, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to put your feelings into words or to recite prayers of ardor and zeal. A wonderful alternative is to focus on the calm and beauty of spiritual readings—Scriptures and sacred texts. For example, many people find the Book of Psalms appropriate, because the Psalms discuss fundamental human struggles in satisfying, beautiful ways. You may simply want to read; or you may decide to converse with God after receiving the written words. Just respond however you can.

Sarah’s story is worth reading. She had been suffering through a spiritual dry spell for several years! Sarah had trouble feeling involved during religious services; she would find herself empty and frustrated during prayer periods. But she tried to generally live in awareness of God, and to make efforts to communicate with God whenever she could find the heart. One day, Sarah received an e-mail from a Christian friend. In the letter, the friend happened to discuss one of her favorite ways to pray: “In the morning, I sit down at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee and my Bible, and I imagine Jesus sitting across from me. Then I ask Jesus questions and tell him what I’m thinking. When I need a response, I simply open the Bible and start reading. I always find some kernel of truth, comfort, knowledge, even plain commiseration. It makes me feel better, as though I just visited with a close friend. There’s always an answer in Scriptures.”

Two nights later, Sarah experienced a particularly difficult “dark night.” She felt utterly alone and was craving God’s presence. In an attempt to pray, she sat on the floor and just kept repeating, “I choose you. I choose you,” aiming her words toward Jesus. Within a few minutes, the words of her friend’s e-mail entered her thoughts, and Sarah went to her bookcase and pulled the Bible off the shelf.

Sarah listened inside her deepest mind, and felt directed to turn to a specific area of her Bible—the Gospel of John. Within a few pages of where she started reading, Sarah came across the following message: “You do not choose me, but I chose you.” It seemed a direct answer to the phrase she had repeated only a few minutes before. Sarah received a sense of comfort that she was not alone, that her prayers were being heard, and that she did not have to continue on her own. With this newfound sense of community with the Divine, Sarah renewed her prayer life.

Another survival tip is to try concentrating on different attributes of God. If your previous picture or understanding of God is no longer working, try a new one. Teresa’s story offers a good example. Teresa always had a tendency to view God as a loving father. All of her life, Teresa actively prayed to and sought God, but with this limited approach in mind. During her fifties, when her parents passed away and the notion of a father figure changed meaning in her life, Teresa found herself in a spiritual struggle. She became very doubtful and entered a great desert. This hurt her terribly.

One day, during a frustrating prayer session, Teresa came to a sudden enlightenment: “Turn to a different image of God.” She felt open to understanding Him in a different way, and therefore, her prayer patterns became new and exciting. Now viewing God more as a brother, a friend, Teresa began developing new elements of spirituality. Today, Teresa claims that her prayer life is all the richer for that desert time, when she had to break old patterns and etch out new ways to communicate with her Lord.

Hopefully, you will find encouragement in the stories and suggestions above. They confirm that spiritual dry spells are natural and also survivable. In addition, these difficulties have the potential to lead to greater spiritual depth and a renewed relationship with God. We just have to remain persistent and open.

When struggling through the sands of the desert, remember to go easy on yourself. You have been given the gift of the Scriptures and spiritual writings—a gift you can use whenever you are unable to find your own words. You have also been given the gift of imagining, and can try picturing God in a new way that might help you feel more satisfied. Finally, don’t be ashamed to talk to others about spiritual dry spells. You’ll find that many people are willing, even wanting, to discuss these times. Together, you can find an oasis of community and comfort.

CONCLUSION

Don’t let your spiritual “lows” scare you; they are worth every effort it takes to overcome them. As you advance in your prayer life, you will be developing a more mature relationship with God, and along with this growth might come growing pains. During tough times, remind yourself that unanswered prayers and spiritual dry spells are opportunities, not death sentences. They have the power to deepen your understanding of prayer. Such hurtles strengthen your prayer muscles, teaching you to look beyond simple “yes” answers and feel-good prayers, into a more profound spiritual life.

After dealing with the heavy issues of unanswered prayers and the spiritual desert, it becomes obvious that a relationship with God is not just about asking and receiving. It’s about recognizing that God is in everything, in the joy and in the sorrow.




Copyright © 2001 by Helene Ciaravino

">From How to Pray by Helene Ciaravino (Garden City Park, New York: Square One Publishers)