Is It Lack Of Faith Or Surrender To God If I Stop Praying For Something?
Q: I would appreciate your opinion on this. I’m divorced. Last December, I decided to give up praying for a husband after many years. Is this a good thing? Am I surrendering to the Lord’s will, or is this a lack of faith and I should pursue that prayer still?
A: God bless you, dear sister. I’m sorry for your divorce. I’m sorry that you haven’t found a husband. I’m sorry that you prayed a long time, and nothing seemed to happen. I’m sorry that you’re discouraged. But I would say this. Jesus does want us to persist in prayer. He told a couple parables specifically about that in Luke 18. He began by saying that people ought not to lose heart but should persist in prayer (see Luke 18:1). Then He told the parable about the importunate widow – we could almost call her the rude widow – who came to the judge’s door wouldn’t stop knocking and asking. The judge eventually answered her need, just because she wouldn’t stop. Jesus told His disciples that God is not like the unjust judge. He is even more gracious. He is even more filled with mercy. So that gives us even more reason to pray and to keep on praying.
As a general principle, God tells us to keep on praying. But I know from my own life, and also have heard of similar experiences from other believers, that there have been times when I have felt a strange peace to leave off prayer about a particular issue, and to just say, “Lord, I’ve prayed 100 or 1000 prayers about this, and I don’t retract any of them. I still want You to do it, but Lord, I’m just going to settle into a trust with You about this.” I hope I’m not talking out of my hat here, but I think that can be led of the Lord too. At certain times, trusting in the promises of God and having a peace in His overarching will can be something of a prayer in and of itself.
Ask God to give you a sense by His Spirit about whether you should continue to pray for this or just resign yourself. I don’t mean to resign yourself to failure; that’s not the idea at all. I mean to resign yourself to the idea that God has heard your prayers and you can be at rest with that. God bless you.