Facing unanswered prayers for a dying loved one

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 2002.

I am heartily sorry to hear of the loss of your beloved wife, and pray God that he will himself comfort you with all realism and divine grace.

I find your questions very interesting; though the question of unanswered prayer is one that the church has asked from the beginning and still does ask. Until we get the answer, we may be sure that the Lord will not deny any good thing that we need.

You cite the case of a serious illness where virtually a whole church was praying without any apparent beneficial outcome. We are certainly encouraged by Scripture to bring all of our requests to God, but how many of them he chooses to answer in exactly the same way we were expecting is another point altogether. Secondly, our blessed Lord is surely an example to us. He did not come to Gethsemane nor to Calvary rejoicing that he was able to suffer for God\'s sake; he reported to his apostles how downcast and burdened he felt, and always added to his prayers, 'Nevertheless, thy will be done'.

Similarly with ourselves, sometimes God answers our prayers with a yes, sometimes with a no. The question of God's attitude towards us, even when he says no, is beyond dispute. This same God gave his Son to suffer the agonies of the cross for our sake. In light of these things, we should not come to God believing that he necessarily will do all that we ask of him exactly in the same way as we have proposed. He is God, after all, and knows better than we do what our needs are.

We come now to your second question. Certainly, if you should wish to rephrase Romans 8, \'In all things God works together for good . . .', I am sure that is true. But we must be careful ourselves what we place under the \'all things\'. If I cheat my employer in order to get money to spend on beautifying my house, then the very idea that God helped me to do it is a form of blasphemy. On the other hand, taking life as a whole, it is certainly true that God works together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. That is to say, God has in mind a purpose for which he calls us, and he will make all things to serve that purpose. And the ultimate purpose is described as 'to be conformed to the image of God\'s dear Son'.

Meanwhile, we are very sorry indeed to hear that you have lost your wife, and we pray for you, that the Lord himself who comforted Martha and Mary at the loss of their brother may himself comfort you, so that eventually we will hear you say 'God has done all things well'.