You might not know this about me but my guilty pleasure is old school Garth Brooks tunes. Specifically late ’80s to mid-’90s Garth. Everything from Thunder Rolls to Ain’t Goin’ Down. My buddies and I have put to memory almost every word of every song from his debut album (1989) ’til, roughly, Sevens (1997). I jumped the Garth train right before he moved into his alter-ego Chris Gaines (though if I’m being completely honest, even that album had a few bangers). 

For those unfamiliar with Garth, you’ll be forgiven (although I’m confident if you open your heart a bit you won’t be disappointed). One of the things I appreciated from a young age was how so often there’d exist this undercurrent of “theology” (for better or worse) in Garth’s music. From songs like “We Shall be Free” to “If Tomorrow Never Comes.” One of his best was “Unanswered Prayers,” a tune about a guy who runs into his old flame and reflects on how he prayed that “God would make her mine” but that prayer goes unanswered and now here he is all of these years later, happily married with the woman that he truly loves, conceding that God knew all along what was in store and he’s grateful for the way things turned out:

“Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs
And just because He doesn’t answer, doesn’t mean He don’t care
Cause some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.”

It’s a lovely sentiment to have everything wrap up nicely in our lives and if it works for you, I guess that’s great but in my experience, unanswered prayer can be a really tricky thing to deal with and can push us away from God. It’s one thing if it’s a future wife or job or passing an exam — we can maybe reconcile those “unanswered” prayers. But it gets trickier when it’s a fervent prayer about a friend’s healing that never comes or a war that doesn’t end or some unnecessary suffering that’s never relinquished. 

It’s fair, and I’d say even healthy, to struggle with this because scripture has a lot to say about prayer and, particularly, prayer being answered by a good and loving God. Typically, in order to avoid disappointment with God or to avoid cognitive dissonance with our theological worldviews, we search for the rationale that makes it make sense: “God’s sovereign. He does what he wants.” or “God’s ways are beyond our ways” or “God’s got something better in store” (a la Garth) or “We need to be/do more X (whatever X is: faithful, serving, Bible reading, generous, etc.) and then he’ll answer” and so forth. We can drive ourselves mad trying to play the mental gymnastics that allow an earnest unanswered prayer make sense. And yet it’s natural to do this, I think, for people of faith to continue to seek to reconcile these things. I’m not against this and yet I don’t want to get into a theological why for unanswered prayer here either.

Lately I’ve been reading Brad Jersak’s book “A More Christlike God” and at one point he discusses the challenge of not knowing what to do with prayer that doesn’t play out according to plan. In response, Jersak was drawn to either stop praying altogether or to simply pray things that expected nothing of God because then he could avoid disappointment. Recognizing neither of these options were faithful to the way Jesus speaks of prayer, Jersak asks his friend Eugene Peterson how he deals with this problem. Peterson’s response was 2 words:

Be disappointed. 

Jersak writes, “Pray for heaven to touch earth and grieve because heaven is not earth” (pg 37). That got me. In other words, the response to unanswered prayer doesn’t have to be to rationalize prayer or to avoid prayer or to make our prayers weak; it’s to continue to courageously lean in, to ask God to keep on with the work of healing and reconciliation in this world, whether big or small, and then if–and sometimes when–such requests don’t come about as we hope, to simply be disappointed with God. Don’t turn your back. Don’t give up. Just… be real. Acknowledge with disappointment and frustration and anger and even despair that heaven has not yet come to earth and not all things will work out nice and tidy for us the way it might in a Garth Brooks song. 

Being disappointed in God is allowed. Heck, it’s even biblical. David was often frustrated and disappointed with God’s silence or refusal to answer prayer as he hoped:

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?” (Psalm 13:1-2)

Check out Psalm 22, 77, 88 and probably a dozen other Psalms that carry this same sentiment. There’s this vibe in these passages that God has not come through but instead of rationalizing it or stopping praying for hard things or any other such response, David is just raw in his disappointment, holding nothing back. David shows this is a valid and even faithful response to prayers that don’t pan out. So let’s be willing to follow suit and not shy away from being real with God because as counterintuitive as it seems, our disappointment has the power to lead us to a deeper love and trust in this God. At the end of Psalm 13, David confesses:

But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me. (Psalm 13:5-6)

I’m not sure here but maybe God’s faithfulness is best expressed not through whether prayer is answered or not but instead transcending this altogether and responding to our limited human perspectives with a grace that draws us to him in the midst of all our disappointment. That’s kind of cool, right?