How Then Should We Pray?

When Suffering Makes Us Wonder

By Denise Kohlmeyer

Why? Why didn’t God answer my prayers? He could have healed my brother. But He didn’t, and my brother died.”

This was the tearful lament of one woman in our evening Bible study. We were studying hope in the light of God’s promises. Mary shared how she had put her hope and expectation in God healing her brother, who was taken suddenly and seriously ill.

Mary knew God could take her brother’s broken body and make it whole again. But that was not what happened. After lingering on life support for more than a week, her brother died.

Mary was now more confused and at odds with God’s answer to her prayers and her expectations.

Therein lies Mary’s (and our) problem: there is a cataclysmic difference between can and will.

We know God can do all things, and nothing—nothing!—is impossible for Him. After all, we have a plethora of evidence in the Bible.