As a pastor for over 40 years, I have heard many, many believers express their anger toward God. Typically, it was because they expected something from God that he has not promised. Often it was because he or she had experienced some traumatic event that they believed God should have prevented. At other times, it was because a fervent prayer had gone unanswered. In this blog, I want to talk about one more reason that a prayer may go unanswered or that hurtful things may happen that few believers are aware of.

This may be an unfamiliar concept to many, but I believe it is a valid, biblical concept. Your prayer may have gone unanswered or is yet to be answered simply because of the devil’s resistance. I think most believers assume that when a prayer goes up to God, he simply gives it a “yes” or “no” or , perhaps, a “not now.” If he approves, then it is a done deal. However, even when the answer is yes, there can be significant demonic resistance to the answer.

The classic example of this reality is found in Daniel 10. In that chapter, Daniel had a disturbing vision about a great war. Daniel was troubled by the vision and so began to fast and pray for an interpretation of the dream. After twenty one days, a powerful angel appeared to Daniel. The angel told the prophet that on the first day Daniel had begun two fast and pray, he had been dispatched with the answer to Daniel’s prayer. However, a powerful demonic prince, the prince of the Persian Kingdom, withstood the angel for twenty one days and would not let him pass to bring the answer to Daniel. Eventually, Michael, the archangel, came to take up the battle with the demonic prince so that the other angel could continue on his assignment.

If you are not familiar with the passage, this may surprise you. First of all, many believers give little or no thought to the demonic realm and many of us simply assume that if God approves our prayer then everything automatically lines up for our answer. The truth is that Satan may and does oppose what God has said “yes” to. In this case, the answer was delayed for three weeks and, if Daniel had not continued to pray, it is possible that Michael would not have been dispatched to join the the battle and Daniel would not have received his answer.

This opposition is a reality in spiritual warfare. We have a part to play in the battle and that part is sometimes persisting in prayer until we see the answer or some breakthrough. That prayer may take longer than three weeks, three months, or three years. Some might argue that since Christ defeated Satan through the resurrection, demons can no longer oppose God’s will. However, the apostle Paul himself wrote to the church at Thessalonica, “For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, did, again and again—but Satan stopped us” (1 These. 2:18). In the New Testament, post resurrection, we are warned that we must be aware of Satan’s schemes against us. We are told that we must struggle against him. We are told that he still seeks to devour us like a roaring lion. If we allow ourselves to fall prey to one of his scenes against us, hardship may come our way even though it is not God’s heart for us. If we give up praying too soon, an answer may not come because we became weary and gave in to the devil’s resistance.

A second reality, attached to spiritual warfare, is that something in our lives may be giving the devil a legal right to oppose God’s blessings and maintain a curse that has been established over our lives. Curses may be established because of unrepented sin in our own lives or as a result of sin in our bloodline. We are told several times in scripture that the consequences or punishment for the sins of our fathers, may be passed down for three or four generations. The consequences of these sins may be a curse that us operating on an entire family line (see Exodus 20:5).

Curses give Satan a right to oppress or afflict even believers. These curses may manifest as repeated business failures, conflict in families, mental illness, miscarriages, physical illness, a history of divorce, rebellion in children, bondage (additions), etc. The spiritual realm is a realm operated under law. There are many courtroom scenes is scripture in which the enemy brings a charge against of of God’s people in an effort to obtain a legal right to afflict even God’s children. Because God is a God of justice as well as grace, if the devil brings a charge against us in the courts of heaven that gives him a legal right to afflict us or oppose an answer to prayer, then God must allow him to do so because God, as a judge, cannot show partiality even to his own children. Many times, bad things happen to us or blessings fail to manifest because Satan has obtained a ruling against us in a court of heavenly law.

Our part, then, is to not only continue to pray for good things but also to confess, repent of, and renounce any sins that we are aware of on behalf of ourselves or our bloodline. Contrary to popular religious thought, these things are not always taken care of automatically by the blood of Jesus. In the first few chapters of Revelation, Jesus gave warnings to several churches and called them to repent and change their ways or bad things would occur. This is not a threat by an angry Jesus, but an indictor that their unrepented sin would open the door to demonic attacks, through which bad things would come their way.

We may need to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any thing that is giving Satan legal access to us or our children, our sins or the sins of our fathers, so that we can remove that legal access through the blood of Christ. Satan is described in Revelation as “the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night” (Rev. 12:10). That is his tactic so we must be diligent to eat with those issues in our lives or bloodlines so that he has nothing to use against us in court.

Some prayers may have gone unanswered because we did not persist. Other prayers may have gone unanswered or hurtful things may have occurred because something was giving the devil a legal right to harass, oppress, or afflict us or our families. Sometimes we are mad at God because of unanswered prayers or hurtful events in our lives or family lines. For the most part, the church has not taught us about the arena of spiritual warfare. Just as Israel had to engage in battle to posses the promised land, we too must often engage in battle to possess the blessings we are praying for. This is not God’s fault but our own or church leaders for not teaching us these realities.

Perhaps, God has given us more responsibility in obtaining our answers to prayers and his blessings than we may be comfortable with. And yet, scripture reveals these responsibilities and the power of the blood of Jesus to overcome the enemy. If you have not been schooled in spiritual warfare, I might suggest my book, Born to Be Free (published by Morgan James and available on Amazon), and begin to grow in your understanding and the strategies needed to overcome the resistance of the devil. There are other excellent books as well that address these issues. I encourage you to read one.

God is for us. He wants to bless us. He wants to answer our prayers. But there are things that can get in the way of blessings and answered prayer that he has revealed to us and for which he has provided solutions. It is true that God could sweep away the devil with one word, and keep us from all hurt and harm on this planet. And he will do so in time. But for now there is still a real enemy and real battle to be fought. Paul reminds us, “That our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God…” (Eph. 6:12-13). Our lack of knowledge about these matters does not exempt us from their reality, it simply leaves us at the mercy of an invisible enemy who wants to steal, kill, and destroy and then blame God. Blessings in Him.

As we continue in this series, I want to cover another possible scenario in which we may feel that God has not answered our prayers, when we feel that he should have done so. Again, I need to say that being angry with God is evidence that we have judged God to be unfair, uncaring, or unfaithful. That judgment will eventually distance us from God and his people and often takes those who are close to us with us. If we are angry, it is important to examine the source and deal with it. So let’s look at another possible scenario that may have caused us to judge God and be angry.

A fairly common scenario is one in which we may have preconceptions about how God should answer our prayers and so miss out on the answer he does send. The answer may actually meet the need we have in a profound way, but because it doesn’t come wrapped in the paper or box we imagined, we turn it down. The classic example of this is the account of Naaman in 2 Kings 5. In this account, Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He is described as a great man but one who had contracted leprosy. He was informed that a prophet in Israel, Elisha, could heal his leprosy. So in an effort to impress the prophet, Naaman took an entourage of horses and chariots along with gold, silver and expensive clothes as gifts to the prophet. In expectation of a moment fitting his status, he proceeded to Elisha’s house.

When he arrived, he was extremely disappointed. Elisha did not meet him grandly and personally, but sent only a servant with the message to go dip in the Jordon River seven times and he would be healed. Naaman was infuriated. He declared, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the anime of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy…he turned and went off in a rage” (2 kings 5:11-12)!

In essence, he had imagined that God would answer his prayer in a certain way – one that honored Naaman and recognized his great value. He had imagined a very splendid, impressive moment when the prophet would heal him, but instead got instructions from a servant to go dip in a muddy river he disdained. Because God sent his answer in a different package than he expected , he left angry and unhealed. Fortunately, his servant convinced him to do what the prophet had instructed and he was eventually healed. He nearly lost out on his amazing blessing, however, because he wanted the prayer answered on his terms, rather than God’s.

God is always multitasking , however, and often wants to answer the heart of our prayer in ways that also accomplish other things. In Naaman’s case, he needed to humble himself before God could answer his prayer. Otherwise, Naaman would have left more prideful and arrogant than when he arrived. Instead, he left healed, humble, and grateful and was a better man and leader for the experience.

God has promised to meet our essential needs – ” our daily bread.” We may turn that promise into an expectation of making us wealthy, powerful ,and influential…which would probably distance us from God because the wealth and success would make us feel self-sufficient, connecting us socially with people who value power and recognition much more than a relationship with Jesus.

Not being wealthy or famous may be in our best interest but we may still become angry when we can’t keep up with the high rollers at the office, when “the deal of a lifetime” did not manifest, or when the lottery number “we heard from the Lord” did not pay off. When God determines to meet our financial needs in a way we did not imagine, we may feel as if he has let us down or doesn’t care about the thing we know would make us happy. Of course, our expectation is not always about money.

When he points us to the muddy waters of the Jordan rather than the mountain streams of Damascus, we may feel slighted and disappointed in many areas. This preconception of answered prayers “on our terms” may be about the perfect relationship, career, house, car, or some sort of fame or significance. I have known people that turned down jobs, relationships, and opportunities because what God may have sent them didn’t meet their expectation or “make their cut.” The less than perfect job or spouse may have grown into the blessing they had always wanted, but they were unwilling to consider that something a little less than they had imagined or felt worthy of might actually be the better answer to their prayers and real needs. In other words, when I pray for a car and imagine a BMW, perhaps, I should also be open to the dependable Ford me makes available, because when the warranty expires on the BMW, you may wish you had a Ford.

I’m not saying we should always settle or take the first thing to come along. We should, however, examine our preconceptions and “our terms” when the answer to our prayers and desires go unanswered over time. Has God actually answered our prayer in a way we had not imagined? Would our imagined answer to prayer actually be in our best eternal interest? Have we asked God how we should pray in response to a need or desire we are feeling? It is often wise to pray for the “what,” but let God deal with the “how.”

Again, if we are angry with God, is it because we believe he owes us something he hasn’t actually promised? Is it because we haven’t detected the “spiritual trap” woven into the thing we are asking for? Is it because the things we have imagined for ourselves flow out of the flesh and not the spirit? When we do pray with expectation, let’s do so with an open heart that allows God to answer the need that is reflected in our request, in a way that is unexpected but has our best interest in mind. God is a good father. Hw will way every request and answer in a way that meets our true need more profoundly than we can often see or understand. That is when we simply trust that God loves us enough, to not give us every desire of our heart.


Next Week: We may be unaware that Satan has obtained some legal right to oppose God’s answer to our prayers and will continue to oppose the answer until the legal right has been removed.

My wife Susan was telling me this week that she had recently encountered a number of people who had distanced themselves from the church and from God because they were angry with Him. Each of these were angry because something didn’t happen that they thought God should make happen or because something did happen that they believed a loving God should have prevented. Either way, they were angry because their expectations about God had not been met.

I think many of us, as believers, have been in that place at one time or another. Perhaps, we weren’t angry but we were certainly disappointed with God and left wondering if God even hears our prayers or doesn’t always keep his promises. I think enough people struggle with this human experience that I want to speak to it in more detail than I have previously.

Taking offense at God puts us in a very spiritually vulnerable situation. When we are offended with God we may fall into distrust and unbelief and stop praying, serving, fellowshipping with other believers and, ultimately, come into agreement with Satan about the character of God. That scenario is what caused Adam and Eve to be removed from the Garden of Eden and what caused an entire generation of Hebrews to wander in the wilderness for forty years, never to enter the promised land. Because of that, I will do this in a series of several blogs rather than just trying to speak to it briefly in only one.

In general, there are several things that may cause us to be mad at God or take up an offense against him when God has not fulfilled our desires or met our expectations. I will list eight of those here.
1. We may fail to recognize that God will not respond to a prayer that is asking Him to violate his righteousness or that would be a violation of his commands

2. We may fail to recognize that many of God’s promises are conditional and, perhaps, we have not yet met those conditions.

3. We may have preconceptions about how God should answer our prayers and so miss out on the answer he does send.

4. We may be unaware that Satan has obtained some legal right to oppose God’s answer to our prayers and will continue to oppose the answer until the legal right has been removed.

5. We may fail to understand the nature of free will in this world, and so are angry at God when someone has exercised their free will and hurt us.

6. We may fail to recognize that our own bad decisions are are keeping us from receiving what we are asking for.

7. We may not understand, that faith must still hold that God is good and righteous in all he does, even though we don’t understand why something happened or did not happen as we desired.

8. We may fail to recognize, that as a good father, God may say “No” to things that would eventually hurt us, even though we think it is the very thing that would make our life worth living.

Let me begin with reason Number One.

I have been in full-time ministry for a number of years and very little surprises me. However, on occasion, I have been surprised by the prayers that some believers have offered up and then been upset with God that he did not answer. I remember a very mature, talented Christian woman who was angry with God because he would not answer the prayer she was offering up night after night. This single woman came to me to confess her anger at God.

She told me that, in the past, God had answered her prayers quickly and clearly, but now he seemed to be ignoring her. She felt betrayed by his “indifference to her pleas.” I asked her what she was asking God to do. She explained that she had been having an affair with a married man who had a wife and three young children. She had been asking God to prompt this man to divorce his wife, leave his children, and marry her. She had been praying that for months but had seen no change in her “lover’s” hesitancy to leave his family for her and so was angry that God had not come through for her.

This was a woman who had grown up in the church and even taught Bible classes for her congregation. I asked her why she thought God should answer that prayer. Who answer was simple. “God wants me to be happy and that’s what would make me happy!” It never occurred to her that she was asking God to participate in her sin and compound the sin by prompting him to abandon his wife and children and violate the covenant oaths he had made when he married the woman. I was amazed that she had ever thought God would aide her in a clear violation of his will and his values…but she was angry that he had not come through for her. Another time, I had a single Christian man tell me that he was praying for God to help him “score” with the woman he was taking out that night. When I asked why he thought God might answer that prayer, he simply answered that he loved sex and he thought God would want to satisfy his “God-given” desires.

These are extreme examples but it is possible for believers to assume that God simply exists to make sure we receive what we believe will make us happy or satisfy some desire. There are, of course, scriptures that tell us whatever we ask for with faith, will be given. Mark tells us. “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mk.11:24). Jesus declared, “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (Jn. 14:13-14).These promises may seem like blank checks but they are not.

The problem is that we must take all scriptures about answered prayer together without isolating one fromm the others. A key scripture for understanding prayer is, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (I Jn. 5:14). The psalmist also declared, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Ps. 66:18).

One essential condition for answered prayer is that we ask things that are according to or consistent with God’s will. If we are asking God to enable us in a sin we cherish in our heart, he will not respond. He will not respond because, as a responsible parent, he will not reinforce behavior that puts our soul in jeopardy. Paul tells is in his letter to the Corinthians that “love always protects” (1 For. 13:7). Therefore, God will not participate in sin…not just because he is holy, but also because he loves us. When we pray, we need to be sure that what we are asking for is not contrary to the will and ways of God. Some are mad at God, because he didn’t give them what they wanted, even thought it was a prayer birthed out of sinful desires. Sometimes we need to repent rather than being mad at God. God wants to bless us, but sin robs us of blessings. We should pray for things that God desires for us, rather than what our flesh desires.

More on this next week.