Why I’m Glad God Doesn’t Give Me Everything I Ask For

I stood at my kitchen counter, chopping carrots and potatoes for our meal that night. My toddler sidled up beside me, hugging my leg while his big blue eyes gazed up at me from under his sandy locks. “Momma, can I help you?” I smiled and told him that this was a job just for adults, because sharp knives can be really dangerous, but he could take the carrots I chopped and put them in the pot if he wanted.

He disliked that answer. He cried and stomped and demanded to use a knife “just like Mommy.” After I explained more and demonstrated the sharpness of the knife, he finally agreed he would help by putting the already-chopped carrots in the pot for me.

As parents, aunts, grandparents, older siblings, or babysitters, we know how foolish and dangerous it would be to give little ones everything they asked for. We know running with scissors could lead to injury. Likely from experience, we’re aware of the results of eating ten cookies in one sitting. We learned that hitting and hair-pulling never lead to good outcomes. From new research and our own observations, we know watching TV all day brings out the worst in our children. Our age, skills, wisdom, knowledge, and experience all help us discern these decisions. 

However, sometimes even our own wisdom and experience fail us. At times there are things I would have given my children or done with them that I later learned I shouldn’t. Perhaps an older mom informed me of the poor consequences that would follow or a book I found at the library explained why it wasn’t good for them. Or, in the worst case scenario, I followed my own heart and learned the hard way.

When we care for children, we need to discern how to answer their many requests. We also recognize that sometimes our own wisdom isn’t enough and we need to consult the wisdom of another. Yet when it comes to our prayers—bringing our own requests to the almighty, perfectly wise, all-knowing God—we put our hands on our hips and demand to know why he’s not giving us everything we ask for. We begin to act like children ourselves; we  barter with God by offering our service and sacrifices to him in hopes that we’ll win his favour, and once frustration sets in, we complain and demand.

What if we’re not so different from our children when it comes to our relationship with God? What if it’s actually a good thing that he doesn’t give us everything we ask for just the way we asked for it?

Every one of us, even once we’re saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, fall short of God’s glory. We don’t keep his commands as we should. Our obedience can even be tinged with sin. The same is true of our prayers. At times our prayers truly are godly and of pure desires, but that’s not always the case. At times I pray selfishly—God, give us the house we want and let no one else put an offer in—disregarding how others may be hurt if my wishes come true. At times our prayers are simply out of anger and their results would lead to harm towards another. 

Even when our prayers aren’t sinful, they are short-sighted. Like the toddler who can’t understand the dangers of playing in the road, we don’t understand the consequences of even our purest desires and prayers. Unlike God, we can’t see the future. Unlike God, we don’t have infinite and perfect wisdom. As the prophet Isaiah proclaimed,

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV)

Yet God, in his loving sovereignty and holy wisdom, does answer each of our prayers. As we pray, the Holy Spirit carries those prayers to our Heavenly Father for us and sanctifies them. As Paul wrote to the Romans,

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” (Romans 9:26–30 ESV)

The Spirit intercedes for us, taking our broken, sinful, short-sighted prayers to God in such a way that is according to his good will. And what is that good will? That we, his chosen, adopted children, be made like his perfect Son. 

These words may fall cold and trite on the ears of those of us who have prayed with all our souls for something good to only see our prayer seemingly go unanswered. I know those prayers, I know that disappointment. I know the tearful laments of begging God to change my situation, to give me a healthy pregnancy, to heal my loved one, to save my family member, to only hear and see the silent answer of, “No,” or, “Not yet.”

We may never know or understand how that unanswered prayer fits into God’s wise, good, and sovereign will. It may never make sense. Perhaps some of us will be able to look back and say with scabbing wounds, “God used that for my good.” But some of us may simply never understand. For those prayers, we must uncoil our hands and hold them up to God in surrender. They are his secret will. Like Job, we may never see the fruit of our most grievous suffering. 

But like Job, we can listen to the words that he has given us: That he loves us, that he only gives perfect and good gifts, that he will sustain us through the hottest fires of sanctification and suffering, and his will for us is that we know him. We can cling to the gospel that reminds us even in our suffering, when it seems God has abandoned and forsaken us, he promises he never will. 

We don’t worship a distant and abstract god. Our God isn’t like the father we never met yet who sends gifts twice a year with a card that says, “Love you.” Our God showed his love in the greatest way possible: He laid down his life for us so that we may spend eternity in his presence without the pain of suffering. These promises are ours if we simply believe with faith in him. Grace covers us as a garment. This is what we have to cling to in our unanswered prayers—God loves us and he promises to work all things together for our good. And we know he will because he already has worked the greatest good for us in the gospel. 

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