Answers For Unanswered Prayer from page 3

Then, there is a battle of dueling deities in the story of the plagues in Exodus 7-13. The plagues are not just neat special effects that spice up the story; they are carefully designed polemics to stress the greatness of the Lord over the gods of Egypt. The Egyptians believed that Hapi protected the Nile, and so God turned the Nile into blood. They believed that Re was the god of the sun, and so God turned out the lights. They believed that the Pharaoh was a god incarnate, and so God took the life of his firstborn son.
Finally, at the Red Sea in Exodus 14, there is a battle of dueling warriors, when God the Divine Warrior bares his right arm and destroys the Egyptian army. The most powerful army on earth in that day was no match for the Lord. It was said of the Pharaoh of the exodus, "He will make a ruler of the land whom no one can attack."3 The Pharaoh found out the hard way who had real power.
Unanswered prayer doesn’t void the omnipotence of God. There is nothing we can ask God that is beyond his ability to accomplish, but the greatest demonstrations of God’s power are often found in his answers to our unanswered prayers. Bob Mitchell prayed for the safety of five young missionaries who went to the jungles of South America in order to share the gospel with the Auca Indians, but Jim Elliott and his four companions were brutally murdered. Years later, Mitchell attended a conference in Europe and met an evangelist who was one of the Auca Indians that had murdered Elliott and the other missionaries.4 Only God could orchestrate that kind of answer to an unanswered prayer.
We see in the exodus that the power of God is not something placed at Israel’s disposal with the flip of a switch or the pull of a lever. The how and when of God’s answer to prayer is determined by what brings him the greatest amount of glory. When God answered, it was done in a way so that even Pharaoh himself could not deny that Yahweh was God over all. Some of the greatest demonstrations of God’s power we will ever experience come in God’s answers to our unanswered prayers.

We pray to the same God as these Hebrew slaves. Whether God’s answer to our prayers is “Yes,” “No,” or “Wait,” his answers are always the perfect expression of his love and power in our lives.
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