Even a casual reader of Scripture cannot help but notice the bold and staggering promises made concerning prayer.  Perhaps none is more direct than Jesus's statement in Mark's gospel: "All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted you" (Mark 11:24).    

Matthew and Luke record similar promises.  If we seek after God, if we knock, God will open the door.  All things that we ask for in prayer, believing, we will receive.  Indeed, the original language uses the past tense that we simply need to "believe" we have already received what we have asked for, and it will be done.(1)  The rapid popularity of "name it, claim it" theology should come as no surprise given these Scriptures.   

In addition to all these promises, Jesus implies that like our earthly fathers, God longs to give us what is good in response to the asking, seeking, and knocking of prayer. "What father, if asked by his son for a fish will give him a snake?  Or if his daughter asked for an egg, he would not give her a scorpion, would he?"   

In the face of such grand promises, what are we to do when we experience the opposite?  If God promises to give us what is good, then why does it seem that God says 'no' so much of the time to our requests?  What do we do when we receive a snake instead of a fish, and a scorpion instead of an egg?  When a friend's wife files for divorce while he's fought for his marriage?  Isn't the "good" thing for the marriage to be restored?   Another friend watches helplessly as the paramedics attempt to resuscitate her two week old baby.  She had prayed for his life.  Wouldn't the "good" thing have been for her baby to live? 

All of us have experienced the pain of unanswered prayer—experiences in which prayers for God's protection, God's healing, or God's intervention have gone unanswered.  Most of us have experienced the force of the answer "no" as we have pleaded and prayed for God to say "yes" to our need, to answer the negative aspect of whatever situation we are facing with a positive outcome. 

Given our experience with unanswered prayer, what is the "good gift" promised by Jesus that the Father longs to give to his children?  Matthew and Luke present parallel teachings on this promise of prayer except that what Matthew implies, Luke makes explicit.  In Matthew's account Jesus tells his disciples that the "Father will give what is good to those who ask Him!"  In Luke's account, Jesus defines what is good and tells us that God will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him."(2)

How are we to understand the Holy Spirit as God's abundant answer to our prayers—even those prayers that go unanswered?  First, what God promises to us through the answer of the Holy Spirit is the promise of God's presence with us in and through all the circumstances of life.  The Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit as the comforter, the one who comes alongside of us.(3)  The promise of God's presence with us sustains us, even when God says "no" to specific requests.  Moreover, God is the answer to our prayers.  As M. Craig Barnes, former pastor of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. explains, "To receive Jesus as Savior means recognizing him as our only help.  Not our only help for getting what we want.  But our only true help."(4)

God's good gift in answer to our prayers is the promise of the Holy Spirit, the promise that God longs to be present with us, no matter what life brings our way.  The Holy Spirit is our reassurance in the face of unanswered prayers that God indeed listens to us, hears our concerns, and gifts us with his abundant presence. 

This "good gift," the Holy Spirit, hovered over the chaotic waters and created the world filled with beauty and blessing.  This same "good gift" raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and raises us to newness of life.  The gift of the Holy Spirit is the depository of hope that we too can rise from the ashes of the most crushing events and circumstances.  In the face of unanswered prayers, God longs to give to each one of us the supernatural power that comes from the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, today and in lives right now! 

God doesn't always answer our prayers the way we would want God to answer them.  Oftentimes, we feel we are being given a scorpion instead of an egg, or a snake instead of a fish.  Perhaps as we wrestle with unanswered prayers for healing, for help, and for deliverance, God's bold promise to send the Holy Spirit is the only answer we could hope for: the good gift of God's abiding presence, the power to live a resurrected life, and the promise of God's creative work to make something beautiful from the chaos of our lives. 

Margaret Manning is associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.