Why Does God Make Us Wait for Answers to Prayer?

Every follower of Christ often has a series of prayers they hope God will answer. Prayers for a new job, a better house, and a nicer car. As important as these needs are, there is another level of prayers that go a bit deeper than mere material possessions. They are what we might call BHAPs — Big Hairy Audacious Prayers. They are prayers so big that they do not merely welcome God’s help; they require it.

They are the prayers for a health complication when the doctors say there is nothing more that can be done, the pleas for divine intervention when a family member has given up on God, and the cries for supernatural direction when we are at a crossroads in making a life-changing decision.

Full disclosure here. I have been a follower of Christ for a couple of decades now, but still feel like such a rookie in what Andrew Murray calls “The School of Prayer.” Personally, I have found that trying to understand why God chooses to answer some prayers and not others to be a fruitless pursuit. There have been many times when, under my breath, I have muttered what I call the Martha Prayer, “Lord, if you had been here, this would or wouldn’t have happened!”

Big answers to prayer to BHAPs are amazing and often extremely emotional moments. They are the times when God breaks through the clouds of our souls and sovereignly chooses to move. As much as I sometimes wish the Christian journey were filled with an endless string of mountaintop experiences, we know this is simply not the case.

The question becomes, what is God doing in the waiting moments when our prayers go unanswered? Only he fully knows, but here are a couple of thoughts as to why waiting is so important.

1) Waiting Builds Our Character

I love a line that I heard one of my former professors, Dr. Philip Brown, state some time ago. He said, “God is more interested in developing our character than he is in teaching us a lesson.” This is true. He is more interested in developing our dependence on him through the waiting process than he is in giving us an immediate answer.

2) Waiting Teaches Us The Value Of Crying Out To Him

My wife, Janan, has taught me a great deal in this area. Some of the greatest answers to prayer we have received as a couple have come directly after times when she has spent specific moments crying out to God and pleading with him for a breakthrough. Am I suggesting that her tears magically triggered some release point that forced God to answer our requests? Of course not.

But over and over again, Scripture is replete with themes of persistence and passion in prayer. Sometimes, it is not enough to mutter to God before bedtime, “Now, Lord, you see all of the needs and concerns on our hearts, and I ask you to answer them.”

Unfortunately, sometimes our prayers are so general and vague that if God were to answer what we have asked, we would not even know that he had! But when we truly cry out to him, there is no mistaking his answer. We know and have no doubt that not only does he exist, but that he cares!