Have you ever been praying consistently about something yet felt that you’d gotten no answer? Perhaps there is a need to look at how we are praying. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss” (James 4:3).
Are we honestly listening for God’s answer?
There is a song by country music artist Garth Brooks titled “Unanswered Prayers.” It’s about a man running into an old high school flame and remembering how, all those years ago, he had prayed each night for God to make her his. As they get reacquainted, he finds they really don’t have much in common anymore. And as the old flame walks away, the man looks at his wife and thanks God for that “unanswered prayer.”
I had an experience that made me think about this. I’d been dealing with a problem that included pain when I attempted to stand from a sitting position. The pain persisted for weeks.
One day, as I started to get up from my chair, I was reminded of the words “Rise … and walk” in the Bible. In the book of John, we read, for instance, that Jesus healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, telling him, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk” (5:8). Before I got up from a sitting position that day, I said to myself, “Rise!” And I did. Then, before I started across the room, I said, “Walk!” This I also did. But the pain persisted. I realized I needed to humbly go deeper.
I began stating out loud that God is good and that God is All. I then said, “Man is God’s creation, and I am one of those ‘men’ that God created …,” but suddenly I stopped. I saw that something was wrong in what I was saying. The first chapter of Genesis says it is “man,” singular, that is God’s creation, not “men,” plural. God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” This is followed by, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (vv. 26, 27). In this context, the words “male” and “female” are qualities describing the “man” that God created.
To believe that God created lots of men and women (lots of images) would be to lose sight of the fact that there is only one God and that therefore there can be only one image. Each of us is an individual and unique expression of that image, and we each include all the male and female qualities of God.
We might wonder, “How can we all be made up of exactly the same qualities and yet still be unique?”
Think of a kaleidoscope. The kaleidoscope contains many different-colored pieces, such as glass or tinsel. As you turn the kaleidoscope, those pieces are repeatedly rearranged in limitless unique and individual ways. So it is with the man of God’s creating. Just as each single image in the kaleidoscope is complete – composed of all the elements that make it up – so we, as the image of God, are each made up of all the spiritual qualities of God, uniquely arranged.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says this about the man of God’s creating: “Man is spiritual and perfect” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 475).
And again in Science and Health I read, “Neither anatomy nor theology has ever described man as created by Spirit – as God’s man” (p. 148).
I became so engrossed in what I was learning that I didn’t realize until a few days later that I was completely healed of the painful condition. It was then that I was reminded of the message from that song. The lyrics were about someone praying for a particular outcome. He didn’t get it. Why? Because he wasn’t honestly looking for God’s answer, which was far better.
In my case, I had been praying for a physical healing, not listening for what I needed to learn, which would really bring about the healing. Because that prayer had no answer, I was being pushed to delve deeper into understanding God and the nature of the one spiritual man He created. This brought about the discovery of more of my true identity as the unique image of the one perfect God. I was a complete individual displaying all the qualities of God, including health.
We can be truly grateful when “unanswered” prayers impel us to deepen our understanding of God and His image, which always brings right answers.
Adapted from an article published in the Feb. 26, 2024, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
