We’ve waited and hoped. We’ve worn the yellow ribbons. We’ve prayed, “Bring them home,” and said tehillim (Psalms) for the hostages. But when our hopes and prayers go unanswered, we wonder where God went. Did he not hear us? Does he not care?

We’ve all prayed for many other important things too: prayers that it’s not cancer, prayers that we can cover the rent this month, prayers that someone will see us and care. We pray for wholesome things—things that we’re sure God would want us to have.

You’ve probably heard the comment that God always answers prayer; it’s just that the answer can be yes, no, or not yet. When our most heartfelt prayers are met with a “yes,” it feels like a huge burden lifted off—like we can breathe again. For instance, every time a hostage in Israel comes home alive, the Jewish community collectively breathes a sigh of relief and thanks God!

But there are three particular faces that will be unchangingly etched in our memories. After all this praying, all this waiting, how is it that young mother Shiri Bibas and her two redheaded children came home in coffins instead? It felt like October 7 all over again.

Where were you, God?

Did God Listen to David?

“Where are you, God?” Is a question David asked numerous times in the Psalms. When he was a shepherd, David had protected his flock from the elements and from predators. Perhaps it was then that David learned that God could be trusted with his fears and his hopes.

This man who was dearly loved by God also knew what it was like to have his prayers go unanswered. When his baby boy became ill, the Scripture tells us, “David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground.”¹ Yet this most fervent, most personal plea of David’s was met with a “no.”

Psalm 22 ascribes its authorship to David, and it opens with the words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In some Jewish traditions, this is considered a Messianic psalm. And those words were echoed by Jesus when he died.²

Did God Answer Jesus?

Before Jesus was executed by the Roman occupiers of Jerusalem, he sat through a trial. The trial was made possible by the betrayal of a friend. And before Jesus was betrayed, he prayed. It was a prayer given with all his body, soul, and might—a prayer not unlike David’s. It was a prayer for life.

Even Jesus experienced unanswered prayer.

He took his disciples with him to a garden, “and going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will’” (Matthew 26:39).

Yes, even Jesus experienced unanswered prayer. He was led from the garden to a place where he did not want to go.

Does God Hear Us?

I think about what Jesus went through a lot—especially lately. The only thing that comes close to making the suffering in this world (and of Israel in particular) makes sense is knowing that my Jewish Messiah suffered, too. Knowing that, for a little while, he inhabited a frail body like mine, he experienced the brokenness of this world like we do.

I also think about the way David responded after his son’s death; it’s clear that he thought about the hereafter, too. He stood up from prayer and went to worship and then to eat. The servants inquired: was he still mourning his son? David answered, “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”³

When our prayers feel unanswered, the best solution is to keep praying.

Yesterday, I played hide-and-seek with my young son. He still thinks that when he closes his eyes, I can’t see him (because he can’t see me). We were at the park, and he ran to what he thought was a hidden corner. He squinted his eyes tight and curled himself up, firmly convinced that he was out of my sight. But I had my eyes on him the whole time.

And I realized that I am like this with God. If I can’t see Him, I often assume He doesn’t see me, either.

So when our prayers feel unanswered, maybe the best solution is to keep praying. Maybe we move through the effort to try to find the right words or to hear the answer we long for—and into an effort to see the ways God is still there.

We can keep praying because unanswered prayer is part of the story, but it’s not the whole story. As David also said, “weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”⁴

A dear friend of mine taught me what it can look like to hold on to that kind of hope. She recently passed away after a four-year battle with cancer. It was excruciating for her family and friends to see her go through all that pain and uncertainty, then finally slip away. But when we talked and prayed together two weeks before she died, she told me, “If I knew what God knows, I wouldn’t argue with him.”

From another speaker, that might sound like a pat answer to a hard question. But for my friend, her answer was something she’d worked out through a long walk with God. She found by trial that God is trustworthy, no matter what. And while she was on her journey, she modeled for her children and for so many others how beautiful trust can be. She chose to believe in the bigger picture of God’s goodness, even when all the pieces of her puzzle didn’t make sense.

Unanswered prayer is burdensome. But it doesn’t go away by ceasing prayer. Rather, this burden can only be eased when we share it with the Lord and with one another. As we continue to wrestle through uncertainties and through pain, we may again wonder about the whereabouts of God. And when we do, may we learn this truth: “He is in you, the one hurting, not in it, the thing that hurts.”⁵

Endnotes

1. 2 Samuel 12:16.

2. Matthew 27:46.

3. 2 Samuel 12:23.

4. Psalm 30:5 NKJV.

5. Dr. Paul Brand, quoted in Couples’ Devotional Bible (Michigan: Zondervan, 1994), 558.