Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
There are many dear people who are confused and even discouraged because it seems their prayers are not answered. As far as they know, they are "keeping [God's] commandments" and their "heart does not condemn [them]"--two basic requirements if our prayers are to be heard and answered (see 1 John 3:21, 22). Further, as far as they know what they are asking the Lord to give them is "according to His will," and therefore the promise in 1 John 5:14, 15, means their prayers should be answered. But it seems they are not. They feel they are praying for nothing.
Jesus tells us that if we see Him, we have seen the Father because He has come to reveal the Father to us (John14:7). There is one special incident in the life of Jesus that may be an explanation why our prayers are sometimes apparently ignored. It involves the character of the Father.
He had led His disciples to the verge of the border between Israel and "the region of Tyre and Sidon." There a pagan woman came to Him crying, "O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed" (see Matt. 15:21-28). Surely if anyone's prayer could be "according to the will of God," this one would be! But Matthew reports that He just walked on as though He hadn't even heard her (maybe this has happened to you). So she begged one after the other of the disciples either to heal her daughter or to intercede with Jesus to persuade Him to be nice to her. So they came to Him and begged Him to send the woman off. "She cries out after us."
Jesus didn't do what they asked, but He did reply to the woman, Sorry, I can't help you. "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." You are not an Israelite, so I can't help you. Sounds cruel!
She didn't get angry and leave (that would have been fatal for her). But she threw herself down in His path and pleaded, "Lord, help me!" Then He said something to her that would (I think) have utterly discouraged me: "It is not good [doesn't make sense] to take the children's bread and to throw it to the little dogs." I fear I would have jumped up and stormed off angry. "He called me a dog!"
But she held on. She had wit and a ready tongue: "True, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table."
Jesus couldn't take any more; His heart of compassion and love had been moved for this woman from the very beginning. He had staged this encounter for the education of His disciples who really did think that non-Jews were "dogs." Now He broke down as He told her, perhaps with His own tears, "'O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.' And her daughter was made whole from that very hour."
Yes, sometimes Jesus appears to be hard and unmerciful; hang on. You must believe He is who He is. You must be convinced of His character.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: April 18, 2004.
Copyright © 2018 by "Dial Daily Bread."
