Still Praying in Faith

I think I've finally found the answer to my dilemma of how God can answer my prayer of faith when the answer depends on someone else's free will. The answer came from Jesus, long ago. It's been waiting for me to find it - to read it and overlook it time and again through my life. As with most of the wisdom in the Word, it's always been there, waiting, waiting until I had the time, experience, and interest to understand it.

So this answered question came in words of anguish, as I imagine they were spoken - a cry to a city: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings; but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate (Matt. 23:37-38)." (emphasis mine)

So how can God answer my prayer when the answer waits on someone else's decision or action, freely made? He can't; or He won't. He has chosen to make Himself powerless in forcing His good will on us. You can hear the ache in His voice as He expresses the ache in his arms, waiting to gather His children within His protection and provision. But every time someone, along with his fellows in Jerusalem, refuses God's will, possibly despite someone's prayer, Jesus' arms remain empty, and the prayer goes unanswered, or at least suspended; and the house and heart are left desolate.

All those centuries of prayers for Jerusalem, finally depended on Jerusalem. Maybe that's why Jesus so often said after He healed someone, "Your faith has healed you, go in peace." We often choose our healing. We choose our answered prayers, as others choose theirs. Of course God does have a sovereign and omnipotent will, and He sometimes moves or withholds His answers for a greater purpose, often unseen by us; but His will for the world continues to echo through the ages, like Jesus' cries over Jerusalem: ". . . how often I have longed to gather your children . . ." It's enough to make your heart break. At least, it should.

I'll keep on praying, and I hope others will keep on praying for me. After all, He does move mountains and change the course of rivers, though sometimes it takes a very long time. Often His best tools are time and pressure, wearing away resistance as hard as rock.