Why does God often not fulfill our prayers?

Archimandrite Seraphim (Aleksiev) (+1993)

 

We consider ourselves desirous of good for ourselves, but it often becomes evident that we are our own gravediggers. There is no one more faithful and more powerful in desiring our good than God. In His good will, He leads us in all things towards salvation, guarding us not only from external evils but also from our own evil inclinations within, which hinder us on the path of salvation. And the fact that God protects us from ourselves is no small matter, for, according to the teaching of the Holy Fathers and especially of Saint John Chrysostom, we are our own greatest enemies.

When we sin by our own will, we can harm ourselves in a way that none of our enemies—whether man or even Satan—is capable of harming us. Those who, under the inspiration of the devil, wrong us, slander us, speak evil of us, wound us, and persecute us cannot harm our salvation if we are watchful and guard ourselves against sin. They harm themselves, for they commit deeds forbidden by God. The soul that sins, it shall die [for its iniquity] (Ezekiel 18:20), says the Holy Scripture.

A proof of this—that external adversaries cannot harm the faithful and watchful soul—is found in the ascetics, martyrs, and saints. The more they were afflicted, the more they rose spiritually and shone in virtue through their patience. If we, through wrongs, slanders, and evils, fall into sin, boil with anger, and give ourselves over to wicked feelings, this happens because of our pride and love of honor, because of our earthly and fleshly disposition, because of our malice and our little faith, and because of our disobedience to God and His holy commandments.

Our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us: Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat and persecute you (Matthew 5:44). Those who keep this commandment receive benefit even from their greatest enemies. Saint John Chrysostom speaks with complete justice when he says: Every wronged person suffers harm not from others, but from himself. If someone, with a hostile disposition toward us, grieves us, slanders us, or wounds us, and we endure and pray for him, then through the “evil” he sought to bring upon us, we will receive great good—the forgiveness of sins and the salvation of our soul. God, in His providence, sometimes allows us to be harmed by our neighbor so that we may have reason to forgive, that just as we forgive, God may also grant us forgiveness.

From this perspective—of the evils caused to us from without and of various temptations—these prove to be instructive and salvific if we endure them with humility, meekness, patience, and without malice. However, if through the misuse of our free will and under the pretext of others sinning against us, we begin to commit sins ourselves, responding to evil with evil, then we will bring upon ourselves the greatest harm. The one who separates us from God is not our enemy but our sin. In the spirit of these thoughts, Saint Nilus of Sinai says: "Blessed is he who endures evil, but to commit it is worthy of lamentation, for he who endures is an heir of Christ, while he who commits it is a co-heir with the devil."

The will of God always desires our good. However, our will, disturbed by sin, does not always have our own good before its eyes. From this arises the conflict between our will and the will of God. We are drawn by powerful passions and, being short-sighted, we often consider as our good those things that are, in fact, the greatest evil for us. Thus, we are drawn into sin, and this brings upon us eternal death.

God has given His commandments to set a barrier against sin and to save through them the faithful from their inclination toward evil. Yet people reject these commandments so that they may live as they wish. Once they have set out on the path of sin, they do not know how to stop. By fulfilling their passions, they imperceptibly distance themselves from God and abandon themselves freely to the danger of drowning in the pleasing waves of their own will. Such people do not cease to believe in God and to pray to Him, but their prayers are not aimed at pleasing God, but at self-gratification.

Self-gratification greatly harms man, according to the words of Christ: He who has found his soul will lose it, and he who has lost his soul for My sake will find it (Matthew 10:39). Behold, this self-gratification is the most common obstacle to the fulfillment of our prayers.

Saint John of Tobolsk shows that there is no greater misfortune for us than to set our will against the will of God. He writes: "The devil has two servants of his, even more ruthless than himself, who fight against the will of God through our will: these are the flesh and the world. The flesh desires, and the devil ignites our desires. So that they do not extinguish, the world keeps their flame alive by embracing worldly customs and habits. Through the flesh, many falls into sin occur, and the world brings various distractions and disorderly joys with the inspiration and cunning of the evil spirit."

People live in sinful circumstances. Lacking a strong faith in God and the fear that after death they will answer before His judgment for their deeds, they easily indulge in bodily pleasures and entertainments, imperceptibly straying from their Christian duty and staining their conscience. Their bodily inclinations so strongly dominate their minds that they often reach the point where they lose sight of the boundary between what is permitted and what is not, between virtue and sin.

You will often hear some Christians imagining the most vile bodily sins and the most perverse iniquities and indulgences as something natural, as "nature," without considering the simple truth, known even to pagans, that the law ordained by God for the continuation of the human race has nothing in common with fornication and adultery. They either forget or do not fully know this clear distinction between marriage and fornication, which Saint Apostle Paul makes when he writes: "Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4). Marriage is "nature," while adultery is sin!

People indulge in feasts and disorderly merriment to pass the time as distracted as possible, and for these worldly joys, they forget God and His holy law. They gradually kill within themselves everything that is sacred until they reach the abyss where eternal destruction awaits them. However, the Lord does not desire the death of the sinner, but his correction (cf. Ezekiel 33:11). And, driven by love, He often protects those who have gone astray in their pursuit of sin by sending them illnesses, enmities, various great troubles, material losses, encounters with death, or by allowing evil people to grieve them, slander them, harm them, persecute them, and so on.

Chasing after pleasures, when they are struck by Divine Providence, they frown, murmur, complain against God for punishing them without reason and unbearably harshly, and are even ready to blaspheme their Creator, renounce their faith, and plunge into even greater sins. In reality, they should have humbled themselves and thanked God for not allowing them to live unpunished in sin. He chastised them to make them take heed and guard themselves from destruction. However, due to their self-indulgence, this becomes unbearable for them. They wish not to be hindered from sinning. They cannot endure the limitations of God's commandments. For this reason, they murmur.

Unfortunate spiritual blind men, they do not see God's beneficence in punishment. Their blindness is a consequence of unchecked self-indulgence. Sinfulness prevents them from seeing their own guilt. For this reason, the guilty blame God.

Thus, a strange spiritual confusion arises. From disobedience to the will of God, one reaches the point of accusing God Himself of not submitting when we ask Him to fulfill our requests. Those who are subject to judgment begin to judge the Judge; the unrighteous reproach the All-Righteous One in their injustice. In this dispute with God, sinners imagine that they are right, not God. However, all whose minds are filled with passions and pride will come to understand that this clash of differing conceptions is not to the benefit of sinners and of the rebellious creature, but to their harm.

What do we see in life? Instead of correcting their own injustice, those who are disobedient to the will of God harden themselves in self-will and fight against God’s Providence. They find fault in the Lord! But wherein lies God's fault? "In this," answers Saint John of Tobolsk, "that God's dispositions are contrary to our will, or more precisely, to our self-will, because we consider God's judgment to be unjust. But does such a thing truly happen? Correct yourself, and then you will see the truth from which you have strayed and will understand that God is just, not you. O, wicked human will! You consider man to be just and God to be unjust. But what man do you consider to be just? Yourself, for when you ask, 'What have I done?' you regard yourself as righteous."

When a person is spiritually enlightened and lives in submission to the will of God, his eyes are corrected, and he sees clearly the things that previously seemed obscure and contradictory. Thus, he ceases to murmur in temptations and tribulations, in losses and in events related to death, for he perceives in everything the goodness of God's Providence, which protects him from evil and leads him toward correction and repentance. "The wise man," says Saint Ambrose of Milan, "does not grieve in bodily illnesses and does not become upset when he finds himself in afflictions, but in sorrowful events, he remains with a benevolent and patient soul, for his happiness and fulfillment do not consist in pleasurable and bodily joys. These are attained only through a conscience cleansed of every sin."

Our Provident God is the all-wise Healer of souls. He seeks, through the bitter medicines of trials, to lead us to the joy of healing and to that state of righteousness through which man may taste the joys of Paradise and see how good the Lord is (cf. Psalm 33:8).

He who seeks the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (cf. Matthew 6:33) will learn, like Job, to receive not only good from God but also to endure evil (cf. Job 2:10), and, most importantly, to give thanks for all things, according to the command of Saint Apostle Paul: "In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

In the command "in everything give thanks," the word everything includes both good and adversities. Therefore, it is necessary to give thanks both when God shows us mercy through blessings and when He heals us through adversities; both when He grants us happiness and when He sends us tribulations. The one who gives thanks benefits from both, using them to grow spiritually and to enrich himself in virtues, just as a plant benefits from both sunlight and rain to grow.

God’s blessings inspire the faithful Christian with love for the Creator, while tribulations teach him humility and patience. For the true follower of Christ, there is no evil except for sin and the devil. Saint John Chrysostom teaches us in a marvelous way: "To always give thanks is the mark of a wise soul. Have you suffered some evil? It will not harm you if you do not wish it to. Give thanks to God, and the evil will turn into good."

He who gives thanks engages in one of the highest forms of prayer—the prayer of thanksgiving. God takes delight in such a prayer, especially when a person is grateful for the troubles they encounter. If God does not call us to such a lofty prayer of thanksgiving for the evil endured, how can He reward the thankful and humble soul with the greatest good? Yet it requires courage, deep faith, and unwavering humility to give thanks that God has denied you the pleasant drink in order to give you the bitter medicine. It takes Christian wisdom and patient endurance not to complain that God does not fulfill your soul-harming requests and, through His refusal, in His goodness, prepares something greater and more beneficial for you.

 

Translated from the Romanian edition of Archimandrite Seraphim's The Art of Prayer.