Greatly Loved, Even in Disappointment

“You are not answering my prayers.” The words came not in calm reflection, but with the edge of exhaustion, the sharp sound of desperation and disgust more murderer than missionary. Arms sore from holding a feverish infant on a fifteen-hour flight. Nose still burning from the scent of a sick child’s vomit caught in trembling hands. A husband scrubbing toddler stains from his pants in an airplane bathroom. The stench filled the cabin, a chorus of screams and spills composing a vivid portrait of misery at 30,000 feet.

It wasn’t our first chaotic flight across continents. Each trip added to our scrapbook of misery: babies sick on terminal floors, delays, and detours that tested both patience and prayer. This time, we had prayer support hundreds, perhaps thousands, lifting us up. Revelation 5:8 came to mind, that heavenly image of golden bowls full of prayers rising as incense before the Lord. I believed those bowls were full. I believed God was listening.

But in the haze of crying children and the smell of survival, it seemed those prayers had been misplaced filed under “ignore,” or perhaps drowned out altogether. The “no” from heaven hit harder than jet lag.

Disappointment in Divine Silence

Most of us have been there offering up heartfelt prayers only to receive silence or worse. We pray for healing, for reconciliation, for provision. But instead, the doors stay closed. The cancer spreads. The relationship cracks. The breakthrough never comes.

When prayer feels futile, we ask Is God even listening? Is He safe? Can I trust Him with my deepest longings when the answers hurt so much?

It’s one thing to endure a difficult trip. It’s another when the pain digs deeper when the prodigal doesn’t return, the illness stays, the sin won’t budge. When our knees are bruised from begging, and heaven seems like it has nothing left to say.

Joni Eareckson Tada asked it this way “Who is this God who bids us crawl over broken glass just for the pleasure of His company?”

Zooming Out From the Pain

Disappointment with God has a way of narrowing our vision. We become like the scientist glued to his microscope so fixated on the details of our suffering that we forget the wider story. But stepping back doesn’t mean we ignore the pain. It means we seek perspective to survive it.

When we zoom out, we find we’re not alone. We walk a path worn smooth by saints who felt forgotten but still believed. Saints like David.

In Psalm 69, David cries, “Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire.” He’s not holding back. He’s exhausted from crying. His eyes blur from waiting. He’s drowning in despair.

But then something shifts. David remembers who he’s talking to. He clings not to explanations, but to majesty.

He looks beyond his own drowning to a God of steadfast love and abundant mercy. A God whose saving faithfulness is stronger than man’s contempt. David’s pain doesn’t vanish but it’s no longer center stage. Majesty is.

Majesty Over Mystery

We may never understand God’s “no.” But we can still know His character. David leaned on that. And so did Jesus.

On the cross, Jesus lived Psalm 69 in full color. “They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink” (Psalm 69:21). Christ didn’t just pray David’s words He fulfilled them.

And when He cried, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”, He didn’t let go of that relationship. He still said My God. He still trusted even in silence. Even in agony.

Jesus, unlike David, didn’t just feel abandoned He was forsaken, so we never would be. He drank the sour wine of rejection so we could taste the sweetness of eternal adoption.

Still Loved, Still Held

Our unanswered prayers don’t mean we are unloved. They mean we are invited to trust deeper. Jesus, who has suffered more than we ever could, remains our companion in disappointment. He is the One who trusted the Father completely even when the sky went dark and the silence was deafening.

The love that held Him to the cross is the same love that holds us when prayers go unanswered. It’s a love, as the old hymn says,
“vast, unmeasured, boundless, free, rolling as a mighty ocean.”

Those who live in that ocean learn to praise even in the hailstorm. They trust not because their circumstances are smooth, but because their Savior is sure.

Like David, they learn to say, “But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.” Not because everything makes sense. But because God is still good.

When silence is our answer, may we find in Christ a deeper song, a stronger hope, and a love that goes further than our disappointment.

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