Ask the Pastor

January 1, 2026

Dear Pastor,

What if two sick kids have loving parents who pray for them, but only one gets better? What are we to think about God and prayer?

Dear Friend,

I address your question with a heavy heart, not because you asked it but because the stakes seem so high. In my life, I have known loving parents who have lost children, so the situation is very real.

Prayer is a mystery. There is no correct formula or effort that can guarantee an “answer” or desired result. It’s not about being good or faithful or obedient enough to have a request granted. God is immortal and outside of time, while we are mortal and experience time as linear, or one moment after another. Our world is shaped by cause and effect, but God is not limited. For this reason, people of faith talk about God’s plan as events beyond our control and knowledge. This means that prayer is not about changing or influencing God.

What, then, is prayer for? Jesus said that God already knows what we need before we ask (Matthew 6:8). It seems to me that we pray to nurture our relationship with God in hopes that we will be changed. Praying for others might soften my heart and open my mind to compassion.

I acknowledge that my words may provide little comfort to someone who is grieving. Such a person has questions that cannot be answered. We visit them, bake for them, cry with them, and even laugh with them, which is to say that we are, if not an answer to their prayer, another kind of prayer in the flesh.

In teaching his disciples, Jesus taught the prayer for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray for ourselves and for one another, which knits us together with God and as a community, while we trust that there shall come a time when need itself will be no more, for God will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Revelation 21:4).

Finally, let me say that you should pray for the desires of your heart. It may or may not happen as you hope or envision, yet it’s true and honest, and God wants that kind of relationship with you.

In hope,
Andrew

Read Andrew’s latest Chapelboro column: “Little Big Moments: Little Drummer Girl” HERE