Still Waiting for an Answered Prayer
12:44 Share

It was just a couple of weeks ago when something my wife and I had been praying for a long time came to fruition. We got an answer from God. We had a child who was wandering away from the faith and kind of had shut God out and said, I don't believe in God at all. And we were on the phone with her and she said, I'm back with God. And we wept. And it was the answer to a long, long prayer journey for that child. And we were on the phone with her and she said, I'm back with God.

It doesn't always work that way. You don't always get a yes answer from God, but what if he did say yes? Why don't you ask? I'm John Fuller, joined by Dr. Danny Huerta, who leads our parenting team. And Danny, Jesus said, you don't have because you don't ask. Right, right. But there's this sense of, but I didn't get what I wanted out of the prayer. So true, John. How about you? What's a prayer that God answered either a no or a yes, and it was very clearly God?

Wow, John, what a question. And I hope listeners are processing this one as well, because we assume an answered prayer is the one we exactly wanted. That's an assumption. There are prayers there that I'm thinking about that I prayed, and I've prayed consistently for my kids. Shape them, do what you need to do to help them be strong in their faith. Mm-hmm.

to be steadfast adults, to be individuals that are able to persevere, to be principled, to have character.

I'm asking for hard things. And so when I'm asking for relief from the hard things, then I'm going opposite of that potentially. And so I've seen my son and my daughter have their own moments of wrestling. And I remember I've gone to my knees for both my son and my daughter for certain things where I'm going, Lord, please, please help them with this one thing. Just quietly off to the side, praying and petitioning for them.

And one thing I've consistently prayed for my son was that he would find a young woman. He said, man, I'm interested in getting married someday and had that dream. And I said, help him find a godly woman as he's looking for this. Give him wisdom, but also prepare him. And I've seen that come to fruition. Also, one that I prayed, John,

was for my daughter. She's had this learning challenge along the way, and she doesn't have significant problems learning, but she has some challenges, and so there's some self-doubt there. She applied to one university, and I said, well, honey, you may want to expand that. And I said, Lord, if this is where you want her to go, it'd be an amazing place for her to go. She had a less than 1% chance of making it in.

And she opened the letter of acceptance. I was going, Lord, please. And she was so excited. She was waiting for this letter. She said, Dad, I really believe God wants me to go here. And sure enough, she got accepted to that one. I said, Lord, man, you're so faithful. Thank you so much. And I continue to see challenges, and I see that as God's faithfulness. And I also see these moments that are kind of rooftop moments,

answer to prayer, God is shaping us along the way and we need to let him do that. And it's not always going to be comfortable. Yeah. So when you pray, know that your prayer is heard. It may not be answered the way you want, and God may work on you in that process of praying for your child.

Let's go ahead and hear more insights in Scripture from Jodi Berndt. She spoke with Jim Daly on his show, Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, about why it's good to remember how God has answered prayer. Always good to start with Scripture. So let's get into 1 Samuel 7, this huge battle that occurred, and then

Yes. The victor did something unique that caught your attention when it comes to parenting. Well, I love that story. The Israelites were on the battlefield yet again. You know, the Old Testament is full of battles. Battles. But I think so is parenting, right? So we get a lot of encouragement from that. And in this particular case in 1 Samuel, they're fighting and it's not going well. And they cry out to Samuel, say, pray for us, pray for us. And he does pray for them.

And they win that particular battle, but they know the war is not over. And yet I love that instead of just leaving it there and moving on, they erect what scripture calls an Ebenezer stone. They put up this monument to say, thus far, the Lord has helped us.

And for me, as I parented our teens, I tried to be, and Robbie as well, super intentional about marking those times when we knew God had helped us. I actually wrote it on a rock at one point. 1 Samuel 7, I think it's verse 12, thus far the Lord has helped us. And I kept it in the console of my car because just looking at what he had done in one situation would fill me with faith to pray for the next.

Because I don't know about you, Jim, but I never have fully learned to relax and trust God. Every new mountain that comes along, every wave that hits, we live at the beach, and I feel like there's a lot of hurricane warnings. Every time we get one of those things in our parenting,

My default position can be immediately to go to worry. What if? Can I trust God? And so I think those Ebenezer stones, those times of reflection of what God has done in the past, thus far he's helped us, can really equip us to pray with faith and boldness for the future. Well, and I think this theme will permeate our discussion, but...

For the people, the 99% that are going to be right where you're at, I'm leaving some percentage, maybe 1%, 5%, where they deeply believe and trust the Lord and it doesn't rock their boat when that hurricane comes in the kid's teen years. But how do you rest in God with that?

This is the ultimate question, right? It really is. It's the ultimate question. I don't know that there's any easy answer, but there's tools we can apply, and that's what we're going to do today. Yeah. There's not an easy answer, and not to get too deep too quick, but I will say I have walked that road and wrestled. And I was praying for my teens and then my adult children, and I didn't think the needle was moving. And in some cases, it was definitely not the answer I was looking for. And I remember saying to the Lord...

I trusted you. You know, I trusted you, God. I know you're good. I know you're faithful. I know this would be a good outcome. Why? Why is this not resolving itself in the right way?"

And he was so good. He was gentle, but very firm saying to me, you know, Jodi, you didn't trust in me. You trusted in an outcome that you thought was the right one. You know, I don't want you to want the gift. I want you to want the giver. I don't want you to want the result. I want you to want the relationship. I want you to know what it feels like to trust me. And not only that, but when things aren't going the way you think,

You're welcome to climb into my embrace. Let me comfort you. Let me tend to your hurts, mama or daddy, whoever you are thinking through this stuff. Let God comfort you in that and strengthen you to send you back out into that battlefield to pray because he is good and he is trustworthy, but we don't always see it. You know, when you think about that, so many great thinkers, Gary Thomas on marriage and others, when you look at all of life and the structures that God has put in place, whether it's marriage or parenting...

He's trying to teach us something in this. And it is that rest in him kind of attitude. And it's amazing how dense we can be getting there. And we're all human. We have our shortcomings. But that does seem to be the purpose of life is to build our trust and faith and hope in him. There's so much that he does in us and in the people around us that we're not aware of. And you said Robbie's in the gallery. I'll tell you, he's probably right now saying, you need to say this, Jodi.

Tim Keller, one of our favorite authors, Robbie's favorite Keller quote is about prayer. And it is, when we pray, God will either give us what we ask for or what we would have asked for had we known everything he knows. And I think that's a great thing to remember as we're parenting teenagers is God's on it. Well, Dani, such good stuff from Jodi Berndt. How do we know that we're trusting God

with the process and the outcome, because you mentioned this earlier, we pray and we tend to have the sense of, oh, this is what I want. I want my child to X, Y, Z. Yeah, that's not bad, right? Either in school or in relationships or as an adult. But what happens if we get too prescriptive with God? It doesn't give him room to kind of do what he wants to do. No, I mean, picture God going, okay,

You know, I've got an even better deal here, but it might hurt. And I just picture his love and his understanding for what we're wanting for our children. I mean, we see Jesus at this moment anticipating the cross and saying, hey, is there something else here? Is there another way? But no, it was part of the whole deal. And he said, I trust you. Mm-hmm.

so whatever your will is as you're speaking about that i'm thinking of lazarus he he said it's okay he's gonna die he's dead and he knew that there was gonna be great sorrow and heartache but he also knew what was on the other side of that first death that lazarus experienced yeah and john i with with uh my daughter she's uh she's had moments that

have gone different directions that she did not expect. And one of them was with this diagnosis of vocal cord dysfunction. And we're still understanding what that means. There isn't really a treatment for it. You have to learn how to breathe through it and things like that. And she has said, man, so God's given me these certain talents, running and singing, which both rely on the vocal cords working right in order for her to breathe right. She still sounds great singing, but her voice gives out faster. Yeah.

She said, man, I don't understand. And she's been on this journey of learning to fully 100% trust God. And either in those moments, you trust him more because that's where your heart's pointed or you don't trust him. But it has to go one way or another. And it's forcing the hand one way or another. Either you're not going to trust him. You're going to say, hey, you're against me or you're for me. I'm going to trust it. I'm going to lean into it. I'm going to see what you're up to.

And I'm going to allow myself to be shaped by it. And I'm going to bring an obedient heart. And here's one interesting stat, John. Over the last 15, 20 years, they've looked at what parents value worldwide, just overall value. Obedience has gone way down. And the value of success and these other things that bring up your status has gone way up. This idea of obedience has gone down.

When we're trusting God, we're obeying no matter what. That's what we saw in Jesus. That's what we see in his disciples. There's this core ingredient of trust that's shown through our obedience.

That is really powerful and very challenging because the show is about praying for your teens, but it seems like you're talking about me, me as the parent. How am I doing this well? And how am I trusting God well for my child? And I love what you said earlier. Who is he? He's a good, good father. He loves our children more than we can. And he ultimately knows what he has for them.

So join Jody and join Danny and me and others praying more intentionally for our children, trusting the outcomes to God, and knowing that we're pleasing Him and we're entrusting our children to Him when we pray. So resources for you. One is a free downloadable prayer calendar that Jody Berndt has provided.

It's an excellent resource available to you right now. You can download it and go start praying today. For a deeper dive, get a copy of Jody's book, Praying the Scriptures for Your Teens, Opening the Door for God's Provision in Their Lives, which will give some great ideas and more scriptures. And we're making that book available for a donation of any amount to the show and to this ministry today.

support what we're doing to encourage parents around the world. And I will say thank you for your contribution by sending a copy of Jodi's book to you. All the details are in the show notes. Next time, we're going to hear about the need to rein in screen time and how you can do that more effectively. For now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for listening to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.

Put on your comfiest fuzzy slippers, pour your favorite beverage into a fancy glass, grab your spouse, and turn on Focus on the Family's Loving Well podcast. Season 8 is finally here. Dr. Gregg and I have new heartwarming love stories and practical marriage advice to help you cherish your spouse and put Christ's love at the center of your relationship. Listen to Season 8 of Loving Well right now wherever you get your podcasts.