I spent most of yesterday on the phone.
That's a depressing way for me to spend a day. I've never been a huge fan of the telephone as a means of communication, and have been known at times to go to great lengths to avoid it. I'd be hard pressed to define any legitimate reason for my dislike. It's definitely not a phobia ("a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it"), but it is an oddly irrational and yet compelling desire to avoid the telephone. Clearly not a phobia. Oddly enough, I don't mind talking on the phone; I just hate making calls.
Weird, I know.
As an added bonus, I spent very little time actually talking to someone on the phone. Maybe 5 minutes total during two brief conversations over the course of perhaps 20 different phone calls, all to the same number. The rest of the time was spent on hold, navigating automated phone menus, and listening to the phone ring on the other end as I repeatedly attempted to reach a person - any person - who would (a) answer the phone, and (b) answer my questions.
It was a long day.
Eventually, I did reach a live person who was able to help me. I made an appointment for this Friday at the Latvian embassy in London, when I'll (finally! hopefully! please Lord, let it be!) submit my application for a residence permit. A simple request, a few simple questions, yet it took hours - and a significant amount of emotional energy - to reach someone and get an answer.
Whew.
While reflecting upon the day, it occurred to me that my experience of attempting to reach the embassy has some distressing parallels to my experience with prayer. Maybe it's just me... but have you ever been praying for something for so long, and so persistently, that you find yourself wondering if anybody is even listening? If your request, even a simple one, is getting through? If there is actually somebody on the other end of the line? How long must I keep calling - how long must I keep asking/seeking/knocking - until I get a response?
I'm sure that the people at the embassy had perfectly legitimate reasons to not answer the phone. But can the same be said of God? What reasons could he possibly have to delay - or even avoid altogether - answering my prayers?
In the Gospel of Luke, the author relates a parable Jesus told about a widow seeking justice (Luke 18). The widow in the story is bringing a complaint to a corrupt judge. He eventually listens to her request; not because his desire for justice is suddenly awakened, but because her consistent petitioning has given him no choice but to respond. Jesus makes the point that if a corrupt judge (male, dominant, powerful, controlling) would eventually listen to a widow seeking justice (female, poor, weak), how much more would our Father - a self-described lover of justice - listen to our prayers?
Great thoughts, to be sure. But are they true? Because it sure seems like God doesn't always respond to even the most persistent, heartfelt, and sincere requests that we bring to His attention.
When I finally reached someone at the embassy, nearly 24 hours after I first started calling, I started to introduce myself and my situation. It took only a few seconds before they interrupted me to say "Oh, yes, we received your email from the previous day and just replied to it. Let me give you the information you need, and it'll also be in the email which should be in your inbox by now."
Now, the answers weren't entirely to my liking. And the process was still incredibly frustrating. Consider this fact: my persistence had zero effect on the process. All those unanswered phone calls did not improve the response time; they had received my initial email even before I started my barrage of phone calls, their response was already set, and a pre-established reply was being manufactured all the while.
So my calls had no influence on anyone or anything whatsoever.
Well... with one exception. Me.
Huh.
What if God sometimes delays answering my prayers because He knows that the process of asking is actually a vehicle for growth?
What if there's no prayer formula which can produce an answer (I guess that means that "frequency * ( intensity + fervor) / average sins per day squared" isn't valid), but instead God already has the answers we're looking for? What if He delays - or, perhaps, even withholds entirely - an answer from us, so that through the process of asking, seeking and knocking, we can learn something about ourselves and our request?
I learned something about myself yesterday. The depth of my desire to return to Riga was brought to the surface as I made call after call, intensely disliking the process but recognizing its necessity. In other words, I wouldn't have gone through that amount of effort for a desire that ran anything less than soul-deep.
That's in no way to pat myself on the back for my effort (but if you want to give me a slight "atta-boy," I won't turn it down), but merely to illustrate the fact that the process is sometimes part of - how do I put this - the process. I think that sometimes prayer is more for my benefit than anything else. Do I really want this? Am I sure that this is even a healthy request? How can I seek to help God answer this petition? Those are questions that sometimes find their answers in persistent, unrelenting prayer.
Doesn't make the silence any easier. The gut-wrenching loneliness that silence from the heavens can bring about is unparalleled in depth. But (there's always a but) it does help trigger an introspective analysis of the state of my own heart, and reveals the source of the desires which are fueling my prayers to begin with.
And sometimes, that's where I find the answer I was looking for all the time.