God on Mute Read online

  The pastor just couldn’t understand what I was saying. “Why,” he wanted to know, “would someone fabricate a story like that? What’s funny about it, anyway?” It’s pointless explaining a joke to someone who didn’t understand it the first time. Trust me. I’ve had a lot of experience, and I know. So I apologized to the perplexed leader and hung up the phone. A few weeks later, I was scanning the pages of a national magazine when an article caught my eye. It was reporting a revival among basketball players. I froze. The article was about me.

  Christians are quick to spread glory stories, but disappointments tend to be brushed under the carpet because we don’t want to discourage anyone at church or be a bad commercial at work. But God isn’t like us. He doesn’t get insecure about His performance, and He never asks us to cover up for Him.

  When our prayers aren’t answered and heaven is silent, there may be good reason to doubt God’s existence. I know plenty of people who’ve gone that route. But there is also good reason to believe. I’m told that the chances of life beginning by cosmic fluke are something in the region of 1 in 1x1040,000 . That’s a lot of zeros. Not impossible, of course, but cutting the Creator out of the equation takes an awful lot of faith. And if there is a God, there’s pretty good reason to believe in the power of prayer too. “Ask and you will receive,” Jesus promises, “and your joy will be complete” (John 16:24). But it is this very conviction—the belief that prayer works—that causes perplexity and pain when it doesn’t. Unanswered prayer is only a problem for those of us who truly believe. For cynics, it is simply a reassurance that they were right all along.

  The Cheshire Cat’s Grin

  In my book Red Moon Rising, I described a time on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza when the Anglican priest asked a bunch of young missionaries sent out by our organization to pray for rain because the locals were suffering from serious drought. No one could possibly have been more surprised than we were when, minutes after we prayed, the heavens opened and unseasonal storms began lashing the island. When we learned that it hadn’t rained so heavily on Ibiza in July since 1976, the timing of our prayer meeting seemed even more remarkable.

  Somehow, a British journalist caught wind of the story and phoned me for an interview. As we talked, I could hear the cynicism in his thick London accent. “So you’re the bloke,” he smirked. “You’re the bloke who’s claimin’ you made it rain in Ibiza!”

  “No,” I replied cautiously. “It would be ridiculous to think that we could make it rain. Wouldn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah,” he had to concur.

  “Look, we’re just saying that we prayed for it to rain, and then it did. It’s you that made the connection.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, and I can tell you’re pretty dubious about the whole idea. I mean, we’d have to be a bunch of nutters to think that our prayers could control the weather, wouldn’t we?”

  “Erm, well, it’s not exactly normal to …”

  “Look, maybe you’re right,” I said. “If you want to believe that there’s absolutely no connection between the fact that we prayed and then it rained, well, I can totally understand that. If you reckon there’s no power in prayer and human beings are merely a bunch of highly evolved animals trapped in a meaningless universe without recourse to any higher power, I respect your opinion and …”

  “Nah, don’t get me wrong, mate.” The voice on the line sounded flustered. “I mean, there’s gotta be more to life. My mum’s a Catholic.” He paused as if this last statement explained everything, which in a way—if you’ve ever known an East End Catholic family—it did. “Yeah, fair play. You’re probably right. There is somethin’ to this whole prayer thing. To be absolutely honest with you, I do it myself, mate.”

  A number of people commented that the subsequent press coverage entitled “God Squad Claims First Miracle on Ibiza” was unusually favorable.

  These days, it’s pretty tricky to find a full-on, card-carrying materialist-someone brave enough to deny unequivocally the existence of a spiritual realm and the possibility of an occasional miracle. These people are still out there, don’t get me wrong, but in an age of quantum physics and postmodern imagination, they are starting to look like an endangered species (which is ironic really, as they tend to be the ones advocating evolutionary progress).

  More than 30 years ago, the prize-winning writer Annie Dillard noted, “Some physicists now are a bunch of wild-eyed, raving mystics. For they have perfected their instruments and methods just enough to whisk away the crucial veil, and what stands revealed is the Cheshire cat’s grin!”2 Years of cautious calculation, on the very cusp of new technology, have left many of our brightest physicists thinking more like theologians or philosophers than the wary rationalists they once were. Like the journalist who admitted to conversing with God, they too are increasingly open to spirituality and the extraordinary possibilities of prayer.

  Cry Baby

  I heard recently about a couple, Jim and Molly, whose first child screamed and cried night after night until they thought they would go crazy. The couple prayed desperately that their daughter would stop crying just long enough to let them get some sleep—long enough to let them feel that they weren’t the worst parents in the world. But their prayers made no notable difference. If anything, praying seemed to make her crying worse.

  Eventually, Jim and Molly made a decision to stop asking God for help altogether. I guess if you ask God to make a baby stop crying once and it keeps on bawling, you hardly blink. Twice, three times, even for a whole week, you would just figure that God had more important things to do than act like some kind of cosmic pacifier. But when that crying drives your prayers to a place of desperation night after night and yet God remains silent, I guess your faith in prayer (or your faith in yourself) could just fade like a childhood photograph.

  Jim and Molly’s crying baby is now a happy, well-adjusted young adult, and her parents are dedicated members of their local church. Jim’s the sort of guy who helps out with everything from evangelism programs to building projects. He leads a house group with Molly, and they rarely miss a Sunday. You get the picture: These are seriously dedicated Christians. Yet in an honest discussion one evening, Jim opened up about the damage that season of unanswered prayer had done to his relationship with God. He admitted that he no longer prays for any of his or Molly’s personal needs and that he hasn’t done so for 20 years. It’s just too painful.

  Paradoxically, Jim and Molly still pray for other people and for other situations, just not for themselves. Praying for the peace of a nation seems easier than praying for a peaceful night’s sleep. They still expect the Father to do miracles for other people, just not for them.

  Whatever the reason, I’ve written this book for people like Jim and Molly who have been disappointed by unanswered prayer, and for people like Captain Scarlet too. It seems to me that those of us who spend our time encouraging people to pray and share the amazing stories of answered prayer also have a sworn duty to care for those whose prayers appear not to be working.

  The Manifold Problems of Prayer

  When people heard that I was writing a book on the subject of unanswered prayer, I got some extreme reactions. Just last week one woman, the wife of a vicar, said “Oh!” with evident disappointment before enquiring, “Will you be following it up with a book about the answered variety?” I tried to explain that God on Mute is really about a deeper kind of faith and that I’d already written a book about miracles, but I couldn’t get through to her. The day before this exchange, another woman, the wife of a successful businessman, said a very different kind of “Oh!” In fact, it was more of an “Oooh!” before adding, “I’ll buy an armful of those. We know so many people who need a book like that!”

  As I write, a vivacious 23-year-old in our church is facing the possibility of a terminal diagnosis. Understandably, each day she swings between faith and grave fear. We’re praying like crazy, but what will happen if our prayers don’t work? When
one of my relatives heard about this book, she broke down in tears. Her struggle is with chronic fatigue syndrome, a condition that has sapped her energy since leaving university 25 years ago. She is sometimes unable to lift even a small bag of potatoes, gets exhausted after any serious conversation, and has never been able to work. I’m also recalling the face of a man who received a clear word from God to abandon his safe career and launch out in business. It was a risk, but he felt sure that the Lord had spoken to him. Three years later, he was bankrupt and without a house. But by far, his greatest loss was the ability he once had to trust God simply.

  Maybe your problems are less obviously painful than these scenarios. You’re probably reading this because, like me and Captain Scarlet, some of your prayers simply aren’t working and you want to know why. Maybe God seems a million miles away. Maybe you took a risk, stepped out of the boat, and sank. Maybe you’re sick and tired of praying for healing or breakthrough. Maybe miracles happen to everyone else, but never to you. Maybe someone you love is rejecting God, no matter how hard you pray. Maybe you need a word from heaven, but God is on mute and the remote is lost down the back of some cosmic sofa.

  Thousands of us carry around the pain of unanswered prayer in our hearts. Occasionally, we wonder why God does not respond to our requests, but generally we just get on with life and try to trust in Him. But it truly doesn’t have to be like this.

  There’s a bit of a myth out there that when it comes to unanswered prayer, there are no answers and we just have to walk blindly through the veils of mystery and hope we don’t trip up. Of course, it’s true that there can be no explanation to the ultimate problems of suffering, but to the vast majority of questions there are, in fact, answers—good ones—that have helped millions of people for thousands of years to navigate disappointment without losing their way.

  The New Rock and Roll!

  It’s vital that we think about these issues, because people all over the world are getting very excited indeed right now about prayer. For instance, on Pentecost Sunday in 2005, more than 200 million Christians in at least 176 nations joined hands around the world for the first-ever global day of prayer. I’m part of a movement that started with a single prayer room in 1999 and somehow spread to 63 nations within its first 5 years. This was not by design. I’m as surprised as anyone else. Even Pepsi didn’t spread that quickly!

  Because of this explosion of intercession, I don’t really do a job anymore. Getting hijacked by a prayer movement (of all things) isn’t exactly a conventional career move, but one of the many upsides is the constant stream of encouraging e-mails recounting amazing answers to prayer.

  I used to particularly appreciate receiving these stories during the long hours I spent sitting next to my wife’s hospital bed. It was—and still is—thrilling to hear the accounts of people stepping into 24-7 prayer rooms and experiencing the presence of God. Equally miraculous are the stories about addictions being broken and lives being put back together by God. When I read stuff like this, I want to call my friends and say, “You’ll never guess what’s happened. This is insane!”

  It occurs to me that a book about unanswered prayer needs plenty of these stories about the answered variety too. I mean, if (for example) you’re sitting in hospital right now trying to make sense of your situation, the last thing you want is people trying to be “sensitive” by censoring all the good stuff out of their conversation. Even when your own prayers aren’t being answered the way you want them to be, you can still be happy for others, and their encouragement can give you hope for your situation. I’ve had to live with this paradox for a few years now and I’m grateful that there’s been so much good news alongside the depressing stuff. Maybe it’s the paradox that keeps me sane!

  It’s precisely because we believe so passionately in the power of prayer that we must also make sense of unanswered prayer. And when we do begin to wrestle openly with this issue, it can never be a neat, academic exercise for polite theological discourse because the question of unanswered prayer touches the deepest, most painful experiences of our lives. We all have friends who have lost their faith because it seemed that God was not there when they needed Him most. Others, like Captain Scarlet and Jim and Molly, continue to believe but live with secret disappointments that drain the joy from their relationship with God.

  Reader’s Digest, Cappuccino and the Cosmic Problem of Suffering

  When my wife was first rushed to hospital, we looked in vain for a book that could help make a little sense of the chaos that we were going through. Samie (pronounced Sammy) didn’t need a great, scowling theological tome on the problem of suffering. She didn’t need the kind of paperback that uses pithy quotes and punchy allegories to prove that one’s problems are not really problems. What she needed was an honest, practical book that had done the hard work for her and would fit on her bedside table between her Reader’s Digest and a cappuccino.

  I have waited five years, wanting to try to write the book that we were looking for. I know the need for it, yet I have been intimidated by the prospect of exposing my most intimate pain and private doubt to public scrutiny. I admit that I’ve also been daunted intellectually. Right now, my desk is piled so high with every imaginable book about suffering and prayer—by some of the cleverest people who’ve ever lived—that it’s starting to look like the Manhattan skyline. One more purchase and I’ll be getting fan mail from Amazon.com.

  If there’s one thing that all these books about suffering have made me realize, however, it’s that I have neither the brains nor the years to add anything worthwhile to the pile. If you want to grapple with the issue of suffering, then I’d encourage you to go straight to the great teachers: St. John of the Cross, Elie Wiesel, Jürgen Moltmann, C. S. Lewis and, more recently, people like Henri Nouwen, Dorothee Sölle and Philip Yancey. This book inevitably draws from their insights, but mainly it’s an altogether simpler book about the practicalities of prayer: how it works, why it doesn’t always work, how to get better at it, how to navigate the disappointments without losing your faith.

  And so here it is: an honest book about unanswered prayer that will fit between Reader’s Digest and a cappuccino, written to help a few people who are hurting too. It’s not going to answer all your questions, but I think it will help answer some of them. It takes the form of a journey through the four days of Christ’s betrayal, death, burial and resurrection.

  The journey begins on Maundy Thursday in the Garden of Gethsemane where Christ’s “soul is overwhelmed with sorrow,” and His prayers for deliverance go unanswered. It continues through Good Friday where Christ considers Himself forsaken by the Father in His hour of deepest need. Next we traverse the gloom and confusion of Holy Saturday, asking, “Where is God?” when Jesus Himself lies dead and buried. Finally—inevitably—Gethsemane, Golgotha and the burial Garden are engulfed by the good news of Easter Sunday.

  The things that Samie and I have so far suffered along the way don’t merit special telling. Plenty of people fight similar battles, or much worse. But the incomparable story of Christ’s agony, abandonment and eventual resurrection—that story remains the hope for a hijacked world.

  When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!

  HEBREWS 12:3, THE MESSAGE

  ENGAGING THE SILENCE

  first

  there is

  prayer

  and where there is prayer

  there may be

  miracles

  but where miracles may not be

  there are

  questions

  and where there are questions

  there may be

  silence

  but silence may be

  more than

  absence

  silence

  may be presence

  muted

  silence

  may not be nothing but

>   something

  to explore

  defy accuse

  engage

  and

  this is

  prayer

  and where there is prayer

  there may yet be

  miracles…

  Maundy Thursday

  HOW

  AM I GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS?

  Abba, Father,

  everything is possible for you.

  Take this cup from me.

  MARK 14:36

  In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is wrestling for His life, in prayer. The location is significant: “Gethsemane” literally means “the Oil Press,” and for Jesus it has become a place of intense pressure—spiritually, emotionally and physically. When life threatens to crush us, we too may wrestle in prayer. If God is our loving Abba, Father, for whom everything is possible, why—we may wonder—does He not just remove the cup of our suffering? Does He really care? Is He really there? I don’t know the shape of your unanswered prayers—we each arrive in Gethsemane by different paths—but here’s how it happened to me …

  Chapter One

  CONFETTI

  My soul is overwhelmed …

  JESUS , MARK 14:34

  What is most personal is most universal.

  HENRI NOUWEN , THE WOUNDED HEALER

  “Wake up!” she gasped. “Something’s wrong.” Samie’s whispers buffeted me out of a deep sleep, and I began mumbling and fumbling like a drunk, flailing frantically for the bedside lamp. Squinting in its light, I stared instinctively toward the old Moses basket beside the bed, but seven-week-old Daniel was soundly asleep, his lips pouting softly for his mother’s milk.