Unanswered Prayer

Read: Romans 11:26-36
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways. —Isaiah 55:9

The apostle Paul had one overriding desire: that fellow Jews would embrace the Messiah he had encountered. “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart,” he said. “For I could wish that I myself were . . . cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers” (Rom. 9:2-3 NIV). Yet in city after city his fellow Jews rejected him and the Christ he preached.

In his most elegant letter, Paul set as his centerpiece (Rom. 9–11) a passionate passage in which he struggled openly with this great unanswered prayer of his life. He acknowledged one important side benefit of this distressing development: The Jews’ rejection of Jesus led to His acceptance by the Gentiles. Paul concluded that God hadn’t rejected the Jews; to the contrary, they had the same opportunity as Gentiles. God had widened, not closed, the embrace of humanity.

Paul’s prose began to soar as he stepped back to consider the big picture. And then came this burst of doxology:

Oh, the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His judgments
and His ways past finding out! (Rom. 11:33).

The unsolved mysteries and unanswered prayers all fade to gray against the panorama of God’s plan for the ages.

In the end, unanswered prayer brings me face to face with the mystery that silenced Paul: the profound difference between my perspective and God’s.

Prayer imparts the power to walk and not faint. —Chambers

by Philip Yancey

Verse of the Day

Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5
New International Version 

THOUGHTS ABOUT TODAY'S VERSE...
cannot think of anything I'd prefer the Holy God to be rich in than mercy. I know my failures, shortcomings, sins, and transgressions. Without his mercy to pardon, and without his grace to send Jesus to pardon at first, I would be lost and without God. Now, because of his rich mercy, my life is tied to Jesus' future and not the one I earned for myself. 

MY PRAYER...
Father of all grace and mercy, thank you. Thank you for being God like you are God. Thank you for extending grace when I have not deserved it. Thank you for giving mercy when I most needed it. Thank you for giving life when I thought my life was doomed and hopeless. May my wealth be found in mercy and grace much more than money and gold. Help me be more like you. Through my older brother, Jesus, I pray. Amen.