More than 69 percent of Americans say they are stressed over next week’s presidential election. Here are five reasons:

o Our elections are longer and more expensive than ever before, causing many to tire of all the ads and worry about the influence of donors on politicians.
o Over 70 percent of Americans are concerned about election violence and the future of democracy.
o Trust in the media to report election news fairly and accurately has fallen to an all-time low; the recent furor over newspaper endorsements illustrates the controversy in which many in the media find themselves.
o Three-fourths of Americans are worried about the future of our nation and the economy.
o Nearly half of all voters are skeptical that self-governance is working in America today.

Yesterday, we distinguished between the secularist ambition to create a humanistic utopia that does not exist and the biblical ambition to advance a spiritual eutopia (meaning “the good place”) that improves the present while preparing for the eternal. Today, we are faced with a third option: a dystopia in which “people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives.”

How do we pray effectively in times like these?

“A Door Slammed in Your Face”
If you’re like me, there have been times when you prayed in the midst of pain and adversity, but God did not give the answers for which you pled. It seems that sometimes, as C. S. Lewis felt in grieving the death of his wife, there is “a door slammed in your face and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.”

Why is this?

Paul wrote, “We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). Commenting on this text, St. Augustine noted that Paul suffered a “thorn in the flesh” that led him to pray three times for God to remove it (2 Corinthians 12:7–8). However, God did not answer Paul’s prayer as he asked, but instead taught him, “My power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9).

According to Augustine, this episode shows that “when we are suffering afflictions that might be doing us either good or harm, we do not know how to pray as we ought.” As a result, we should pray and trust God for what is best, since “it might be that what we have been asking for could have brought us some still greater affliction, or it could have brought us the kind of good fortune that brings corruption and ruin.”

His wise words remind me of the time Billy Graham asked a young woman to marry him. She accepted his proposal but later rejected him. He was heartbroken and could not understand why God allowed this. Then he met Ruth.

One day in heaven, and perhaps long before then, you and I will be able to understand why God answered our prayers in the ways he did (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12). In the meantime, we can bank on the fact that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and that his character does not change (Malachi 3:6). His nature therefore requires him to answer us in whatever ways are best, whether we understand his answers on this side of paradise or not.

What are some practical ways this conversation can help us in hard times?

Two Facts to Remember for “Unanswered” Prayers
One: God Loves Us Even When it Seems He Does Not.
No one blames me when they contract cancer. But imagine I had an antidote that would heal any malignancy but refused to give it to anyone who asked for it. Isn’t this how we sometimes feel about God when he doesn’t seem to meet our needs? At such times, remembering that our Father’s character requires him to act only and always for our best can be the assurance that sustains us. The fault is neither with him nor with us.

One day, Charles Spurgeon was walking with a friend through the English countryside when they came upon a barn with a weather vane on its roof. At the top of the vane were the words, “GOD IS LOVE.” Spurgeon remarked that this was inappropriate, stating, “Weather vanes are changeable, but God’s love is constant.”

His friend replied, “You misunderstood the meaning. The sign is indicating a truth: regardless of which way the wind blows, God is love.”

Two: God Gives Us What We Ask or Whatever Is Best.
A corollary question arises in challenging times: What if I don’t know how best to pray? What if I’m asking for the wrong things or not asking for the right things?

John Wesley claimed, “God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.” I’m not sure this is always true—Jesus healed a demoniac before the man had the capacity to pray, for example (Mark 5:1–20). But to the degree it is, we worry that prayers that are seemingly unanswered are, therefore, wrongly prayed (cf. James 4:2–3).

However, as Augustine noted, we can know that God’s answers are always for our best. If what we ask could have brought us “some still greater affliction” or “the kind of good fortune that brings corruption and ruin,” we can be grateful that he did not give us what we asked.

“Though He Slay Me, Yet Will I Trust Him”
But, there’s a but: What about horrible, heinous things that happen to God’s people? Surely, the Christians who were beheaded by ISIS prayed for deliverance, as did their families. What about believers who similarly prayed to be spared the wrath of recent hurricanes but lost everything?

Here I must fall back on what I know of God’s character: He is omniscient, knowing our every need (Matthew 6:8); he is omnipotent, able to meet our every need (Philippians 4:19); and he is omnibenevolent, wanting only our best (1 John 4:8; Psalm 86:15). I also know that his thoughts are higher than my thoughts (Isaiah 55:9), so that there are many times when I am unable to understand his providence.

And I believe that God redeems for a greater good all he allows. I must therefore believe that our Father redeems even horrible grief and tragedy, whether we can understand his redemption in this life or not. In the meantime, I know that he grieves as we grieve (John 11:35) and walks with us through the hardest places of life (Isaiah 43:1–3).

It comes to this: When God does not do what we want him to do, we can reject him in pain and doubt, or we can bring our pain and doubt to him, trusting his heart when we do not see his hand (cf. Mark 9:24). If we choose the former, we forfeit what his omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent grace can do for us. If we choose the latter, saying with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him” (Job 13:15 NKJV), we experience his best within his eternal providence.

St. Augustine advised us:

“Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love, and the future to God’s providence.”

Will you do all three today?

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