Amy Carmichael and Her Unanswered Prayer

“Keep praying, and be thankful that 

God’s answers are wiser than your prayers!” (William Culbertson).

"Amy Carmichael after 30 years"

Four-year-old Amy wished that her brown eye would turn blue like her mother’s. “I know,” she said one night. “I’ll ask Jesus to make my eyes blue. Mother says that Jesus always answers.” Amy knelt down beside her bed and prayed earnestly that God would make her eyes blue; then she jumped into bed, certain that her prayer would be answered. In the morning she eagerly jumped out of bed and looked in the mirror. Her eyes were still brown. Jesus had not answered! How sad and disappointed she felt. Then a little voice in her heart whispered, “Isn’t no an answer?”

Years later Amy Carmichael went to India where God used her to rescue many children from a life of sin in the temples of that country. She stained her skin with coffee and wore Indian clothing. This enabled her to enter the temples to rescue the children without being detected as a foreigner. Because she had brown eyes, she was able to pass as a woman of India and was allowed into the temples. Then she was glad God has said no to her childish prayer for blue eyes. He knew what was best for her.

God always answers your prayers according to what He knows is best for you. Knowing that God always listens and answers should inspire you to pray continually, even if His answer is not always the one you wanted. When you don’t get the answer you want, don’t interpret it to mean that God hasn’t heard you; rather, look for how it might be pointing you in a different direction as the story of Amy Carmichael above. God’s purpose for your life is more important than our short-coming prayer. To tell you the truth, I have lived more than 20 years long… enough to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered. If some of my foolish, childish prayers were answered, you won’t read this post ever in your life and God’s mini purpose for this post to encourage you in your prayer life may not be met. Bill Hybels says it best,

If the request is wrong, God says “No.”

If the timing is wrong, God says “Slow.”

If you are wrong, God says “Grow.”

If the request is right, the timing is right,

and you are right, God says “Go!”

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.