When You’re Many Years Into Begging God for Something

It’s not my usual habit to respond to posts on social media, but this one day I did. It was an article about why so many young men are still single. I asked a question, and a young man responded to me. We began a conversation (oh believe me, this is not my norm!) He seemed truly frustrated that for 10 years he had prayed for a God-fearing wife and the Lord had been silent.

“Where are all of the Godly women?” he asked me. 

I put on my motherly cap and tried to encourage him in the Lord. Empathy over his pain was my first word, because I know how it feels to pray for something for over a decade and…nothing. His frustration felt a little too much like my own recently. As I typed out a response to him, I could sense that my counsel to him would have to be for myself first.

“I just want a yes or no from God, so that I can have peace,” he said. He wanted to know the outcome. Don’t we all? 

His profile indicated that he was a Jewish follower of Christ, so I spoke to him about the fact that in the Hebrew language, the past is spoken of as in front of you and the future is behind you, which is opposite of what we say in English. All we can see clearly in front of our face is who God has been in the past, and the Israelites were forbidden to go to witchcraft to figure out future events. We are rarely allowed to see the future. I also spoke to him (and myself) about God’s character of goodness and care toward us. I reminded him of the enormous love God showed to us by sending his own Son to take our punishment of sin by death on a cross. 

“I don’t care about any of that,” he said. “I just want to know if I’m going to find a wife.” 

This blunt statement from him shocked me into silence. What could I possibly say? 

He didn’t care about any of that.

He didn’t care about anything God had done in the past.

He didn’t care about God’s character.

He didn’t care about the love shown by Jesus’ sacrifice.

That is where our conversation ended and my conversation with the Lord continued. In my mind, I could see the one petition I had spoken to God repeatedly for a dozen years, as a boulder in the middle of a river. There it sat, unmoving. All around that boulder were the mountain rapids of water, going around and bubbling over the top of it and continuing downstream. The water of all God had done in the past, as noted in the Bible and as noted in my own personal journals. The water of every single word that describes who God is –his faithfulness, righteousness, justice, strength, unending power, unlimited patience, and undeniable good will. The water that poured out of Jesus’ side when he was pierced for my transgressions. The Almighty God flowed as a raging, tumultuous, uncontrollable river. 

I want all of you! I shouted to the Lord over the sound of rushing water. Yes, how badly I want this unanswered prayer to finally turn out the way I’ve imagined all of these years. But if it does not ever, I still want all of you, Lord. Never would I demand in petulance that the only thing I want from you is to get what’s on my prayer list and exactly the way I’ve asked for it. I would rather go without than to miss a drop of all of your goodness flowing around me and slamming into that unanswered prayer. 

That poor young man. That poor me. If all he and I can see is the thing we haven’t gotten yet. 

I attended four funerals this summer, plus news of one more death last week and one more possibly coming. So many spouses now wear the unwelcome titles of widows and widowers. I heard someone say once that only Jesus will do all of life with us. If getting married or anything else is the only thing that will finally satisfy us completely, then we are setting ourselves up for despair by putting all of our hope in it. I know, because I have carelessly slipped into moments of despair when I haven’t gotten what I want. So we desperately need more than what the giant boulder in the river represents for us.  

Only the Living Water that flows all around and over the prayers we offer up again and again will continue into all of eternity. Give me all of who God is. Let my thirst for him be greater than my thirst for an answer.