When Your Prayer Feels Too Late

Zacharias and Elizabeth had grown old without having a child.

In the first chapter of Luke, we learn that Zacharias was a priest and Elizabeth came from the family of Aaron. Serving God was part of the family history on both sides. It was a little like two pastors' kids marrying each other. They came into the marriage with some things already in common.

Luke describes them as righteous people. Not sinless. People who took God seriously and lived faithfully before him. Then, right beside that description, he tells us they had no children. Luke 1:5–7

Those two things belong together.

Sometimes we figure that if we're faithful, if we pray and try to do what's right, our lives ought to work out a certain way. When they don't, we start looking for what we did wrong. Perhaps we haven't prayed enough. Perhaps God is displeased with us.

But Luke doesn't present this couple's childlessness as evidence against their faithfulness. They served God, and they lived with disappointment. Both were true.

We don't know all the conversations Zacharias and Elizabeth had about having a child. We don't know how often they prayed, or whether there came a time when they stopped asking. Luke doesn't tell us. But when Zacharias eventually heard that Elizabeth would have a son, he pointed to their age as a reason he had trouble believing it.

By then, the possibility seemed beyond them.

It isn't difficult to understand how someone gets there. You ask, you wait, and another year passes. Eventually you begin arranging your life around the idea that this particular thing probably isn't going to happen.

You still believe in God. You still pray about other things. But this one gets quieter.

Maybe you know what that feels like. There's someone you love who has been ill for a long time. A relationship hasn't been right for years. You've asked God for help, and you can't see that anything has changed.

And some disappointments have gone beyond waiting. Someone you prayed for has died. An opportunity has passed. You can't simply begin tomorrow where you left off yesterday.

An article about hope has to have room for that too. Otherwise, all we're saying is to hold on until we get what we wanted. What happens to the person who never does?

The question underneath all this is whether we can still trust God's care when we cannot see the answer we hoped for.

Paul gives us somewhere to stand. In Romans 8, he points to Jesus, who died, was raised, and intercedes for his people. He then tells us that nothing in creation, including death, can separate us from God's love in Christ. Romans 8:34–39

His love has been shown to us in Jesus. We don't have to figure out whether he loves us all over again every time another difficult day comes.

That doesn't explain every disappointment. It gives us a reason to keep turning toward him while we live with things we cannot explain.

Now, with that in mind, go back to Zacharias.

He was chosen by lot to burn incense in the temple. He was carrying out his duty when an angel appeared beside the altar.

Gabriel.

He told Zacharias that Elizabeth would have a son and that they were to name him John. And in that announcement came these words:

"Your prayer has been heard." Luke 1:13

Imagine hearing that about something you could hardly allow yourself to hope for anymore.

Zacharias struggled to believe the message. Gabriel told him that because of his unbelief, he would be unable to speak until the promise was fulfilled. When his service was finished, Zacharias went home. Elizabeth conceived, and in time their son was born.

His doubt had a consequence, but it did not cancel what God had promised.

There's encouragement in that for those of us who get discouraged about being discouraged. We pray, then wonder whether anything will happen, then worry that our wondering has somehow put the answer out of reach. Zacharias's experience gives us reason to stop treating our confidence as though everything depends on keeping it at just the right level.

God fulfilled his promise to a man who had difficulty believing it.

And he did it in the middle of a life that had been going on for years. Zacharias had work to do. Elizabeth had a household and the familiar routines of a day. Their disappointment had become part of the life they were living when God changed it.

Most of us understand that much. There are dishes in the sink, something wrong with the car, and a bill we thought we already paid. We take care of those things while carrying something much harder underneath them.

An ordinary life is well within God's reach. So is a situation we have no idea how to change. Zacharias and Elizabeth give us reason to keep that possibility open.

Their son also had a calling that reached beyond their home. John would prepare people for the coming of the Lord. Their answered prayer belonged within God's work of bringing salvation through Jesus. They could not have seen all that during the years before Gabriel appeared. Luke 1:16–17, 76–77

We get to read their story knowing how it turns out. They had to live it a day at a time.

So do we. And because we don't know what the next day holds, we can ask God to do what seems impossible to us. We can ask for healing, for reconciliation, for help with something we cannot manage ourselves. A long wait does not tell us everything God may yet do.

But Scripture also gives us Paul's experience.

Paul pleaded with the Lord three times for his affliction to leave him. The answer he records was, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:8–9

Paul wanted relief. That was a reasonable thing to want. The Lord assured him of strength to live with the weakness he wanted removed.

That can be a difficult answer to receive. When something hurts, we want it to stop hurting, and we shouldn't talk lightly about learning to live with it. Especially when it's somebody else's pain.

Yet Paul's experience matters here. His continuing difficulty did not mean Christ had withdrawn his care. The Lord was sustaining him through it.

Zacharias received the child he had wanted. Paul received grace for the affliction he wanted gone. We need both accounts if we're going to speak honestly about prayer. Together they leave us free to ask for the change we long for and to trust God when we have to keep living with the difficulty.

What does that trust sound like on a hard day?

Sometimes it sounds like David: "How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?" Psalm 13:1

Most of us would be tempted to clean that up before saying it in church. David brought the feeling of being forgotten directly to God. He was still talking to him.

We can tell God we're tired. We can admit that asking again feels painful because we remember how hopeful we were the last time. We can bring the grief of an answer that will never come in the form we wanted.

And when we can't find the words, Paul tells us that the Spirit helps us in our weakness and intercedes for us. Even our difficulty praying is something God provides help for. Romans 8:26–27

You don't have to recover all the confidence you once had before you turn to him. You can begin with what is true today.

Lord, this still matters to me. I still wish it could change. I don't know what you're going to do, but I need your help with it.

That is a prayer you can bring in the middle of an ordinary day, with the dishes still in the sink and the same concern still on your mind. You are bringing it to the God whose love has already reached you in Christ.

The waiting may continue. You can keep talking to him while it does.