Prayer with No Results         

The news my mom relayed on the phone that week when I was in Bible College wasn’t good.

A relative of mine with whom I had grown up had met someone and was about to make what we all felt was a bad decision in a marriage partner. His parents had given advice and pleaded with him to reconsider, and it seemed he wasn’t ready to listen.

I thought: I really care about this person; what could get results? Well, I need to pray. How about if I fast? After all, in Scripture when people were really serious about seeing God work, they didn’t just pray, they fasted, too.

I decided to skip lunch and dinner that day and spend my day praying for him throughout the rest of my activities, fully expecting that God would answer me with my desired result: this relative would call off the wedding.

A few days later the word came in another phone call from my mother. The wedding took place—no family were present. It was done.

Admittedly, I began to wonder: Why did I bother? I set aside this time; I sacrificed and did something God has told us to do when we really want to see Him work, so why didn’t He come through for me?

It wasn’t until a few years after that experience that I began to learn that when we pray and fast, it is not about seeking results but seeking God.

Even then, when the ladies’ prayer group at our first church decided that they wanted to approach our elders about doing a 40-day prayer and fasting event, I was all in.

We were experiencing some rumblings of discontent and underlying tensions in some relationships in our 100 plus-member congregation, and we believed that prayer could impact us if we came together to pray and fast.

So…we got to work. Our elders were in agreement with our idea. We designed and printed booklets for each of the members to use as a guide so we could go through the same Scriptures together for each of the 40 days. 

We patterned our plan after the events recorded in II Chronicles. As king of Judah, Jehoshaphat was facing some formidable enemies, and his fear moved him to proclaim a fast in all the land. He led the whole nation from the smallest infant to the wisest elder in worship and prayer. They worshiped God and sought Him together. They prepared an army of praise and prayer warriors who sang praises before their enemies, literally putting them to death without so much as lifting a sword or spear (II Chronicles 20:1-30).

That was the kind of results our prayer group was looking for when we printed those booklets, stapled the pages, and began handing them out to each of the members who were interested.

I had heard many stories of the power of corporate prayer and fasting in churches. Places like the Brooklyn Tabernacle were birthed in prayer meetings. We were ready for some big results.

To this day, though, I can’t remember a single thing that “happened” as a result of that prayer and fasting event. I can’t remember that we saw any big breakthroughs as a church or in our interpersonal interactions. In fact, things seemed to get worse as the years went by and the church went through a very turbulent time with a lot of division and strife.

Where were the great results? I wasn’t expecting God to knock anyone dead, like He did for Jehoshaphat and the Israelites, but why didn’t things change?

As I was reviewing this passage in II Chronicles to write this article, verse four of chapter twenty popped out at me on the page: “Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord; from all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the LORD” (emphasis mine).

I don’t remember noticing that verse back when we prepared for our prayer and fasting event. Perhaps I’ve just forgotten, but to me it signifies something that I missed then and still too often miss even now when I pray and fast on occasion.

We don’t pray and fast to get results, but to seek God.

I have to ask myself: what are my motives in prayer? To get what I want out of Him? Do I fast because I think God is going to notice me and give me the results I want because of it?

Sounds a bit too much like God’s warning through the prophet Isaiah in chapter 58:3-5. “Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord?”

Ouch! I guess I’ve missed the point—just like the Israelites of old. 

Sure, God worked in a mighty way to rout their enemies in Jehoshaphat’s day when they came together to pray and fast, but that wasn’t why they came. They came to seek the Lord. Did they know that God would intervene in that mighty way and give “results” to their sacrifice? Would they still have praised Him if He hadn’t? Will I?

Regardless of the results, we are called to pray and fast both individually and corporately as a Body of Christ-followers; but we’ve missed the point if we only do it to get the results for which we are hoping.

The Lord alone knows the results of that 40-day prayer and fasting event we held at our church years ago. Maybe someone who participated gained victory over a personal sin. Maybe a marriage relationship was softened because someone who prayed was convicted to be a kinder spouse. Maybe a grandparent began praying regularly for a wayward granddaughter who found her way back to her Heavenly Father.

Only God knows the results of our prayers. What matters to Him is that we come, that we seek Him, and let Him be God of the outcome, as we know He always is and always will be.

And that relative? He’s still married to that girl today, and they’ve raised a family of Christ-followers. Maybe the choice wasn’t so poor after all. What do I know?

God certainly knows. I guess that’s the point.