On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it. As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” (Mark 11:12-14, 20-25 ESV)
Wow this is one of those passages that can get us into trouble if we read only this. You see this passage clearly says that if ask for something in prayer and truly believe it has been given to you in your heart, and do not doubt then you will get it. So when you pray for something and it does not happen it is because you doubted that it would. If you had enough faith and just believed what you asked for was yours it would happen. You can change the landscape if you only had enough faith…
The problem with this is that our faith is not ours. It is a gift, given to us and then grown in us. It is not ours to say it is enough or not enough and it is certainly not for someone else to judge if our faith is enough.
You see faith is a gift that God gave us through Jesus and to doubt is not the opposite of faith. Doubt feeds faith and makes you rely on your faith. Doubt is not bad and does not keep prayers from happening. In another part of the gospels Jesus says if you ask for something and it is in the will of God, then it will be done. So maybe it isn’t that you doubted, maybe it’s not God’s will that what you want is done. I think of the song by Garth Brooks, Unanswered Prayers, that speaks of a prayer that if God will let him marry his high school sweet heart he would be content and not ask for anything else, and this does not happen. And his life turned out better than he had ever imaged it would be, so sometimes we need to thank God for unanswered prayers…
You see I think God has 3 answers to pray.
1. Yes
2. No
3. Not yet/maybe
And unanswered prayers to us are no. Maybe God says no and we ignore or image He did not say anything…
But do not think your doubt or lack of faith caused a prayer not to be answered… God works in God’s own way and we will not understand until we stand with Him and see fully, not as we now see dimly… Your faith is a gift and i is enough for you and doubt helps that faith grow…
So prayer fervently, and believe with all your heart and trust that it is enough and know that God’s will will be done.
aSacredRebel 