Why Does God Wait So Long to Answer Our Prayers?
Have you ever prayed so hard, for so long, that you began to wonder if anyone was receiving it? You are not alone, and you are not unheard. Today’s reflection sits honestly in that silence, the gap between the promise and the feeling, and then turns to the quiet truth of Job 5:11. While Job sat in the ashes, certain heaven had gone quiet, his restoration was already on its way. The lifting was real. He just could not see it yet. If you are waiting on an answer this morning, this one is for you. Read it, and share it with someone who needs to hear that their prayer has not vanished into an empty sky.
God’s silence is not God’s absence.
When prayers seem unanswered and nothing appears to change, God is still at work. Job 5:11 reminds us that God is a God who lifts the lowly and brings the mourning to safety. His faithfulness is not measured by the speed of His response but by the certainty of His character. What we cannot yet see may already be unfolding according to His purpose.
The Prayer That Seems to Go Nowhere
A Reflection on Job 5:11
Rise & Inspire • Wake-Up Calls • Reflection #164 of 2026
Thursday, 18 June 2026
“He sets on high those who are lowly, and those who mourn are lifted to safety.”
— Job 5:11
There is a particular kind of morning the brave don’t talk about. You have prayed — not once, not carelessly, but for weeks, perhaps for years. You have prayed the way a drowning person reaches for the surface. And still the water is over your head. The phone does not ring with the answer. The diagnosis does not soften. The door does not open. The grief does not lift. You rise, and you are still exactly as low as you were when you knelt.
If that is your morning, do not let anyone rush you past it. The Bible does not.
Job did not pray a careless prayer either. He was, by God’s own testimony, blameless and upright — and the ruin came anyway. His children were buried. His wealth was ash. His body was a wound he could not escape. And into that silence came his friend Eliphaz, who spoke our verse: He sets on high those who are lowly, and those who mourn are lifted to safety. A beautiful sentence. A true sentence. And to a man sitting in the dust, watching nothing change, it must have sounded like a rumour from a country he could no longer reach.
This is the honest place where so many believers actually live, though few admit it from the pew. We hold a promise in one hand and an unanswered prayer in the other, and we cannot make them meet. We are told that God lifts the lowly — and we are still on the ground. We are told that mourners are carried to safety — and we are still afraid. And the quiet, corrosive question begins its work: Has the prayer gone anywhere at all? Is anyone receiving it? Or am I speaking into an empty sky?
Let us not pretend that question away. Let us sit in it for a moment, the way Job had to.
Because here is what the question assumes, and where the assumption is wrong. It assumes that if the lifting has not yet been felt, it has not yet begun. It measures God’s faithfulness by the clock on our wall. But the verse makes no promise about the clock. Read it again, slowly. It does not say He lifts the lowly the moment they ask. It says He sets on high those who are lowly — it tells you what kind of God He is, not what hour He keeps. The promise is about His character, fixed and unchanging. The timing is held in hands you cannot see, and those hands have never once been idle.
Consider what was actually true of Job in his lowest hour. While he sat in the ash, certain that heaven had gone silent, his restoration was already being prepared. The latter half of his life — more abundant than the first — was already on its way to him while he could see nothing of it. The lifting had not arrived in his feelings. It was arriving in reality. He simply could not yet see what God was already doing. And the prayer he thought had vanished into an empty sky had, in fact, been received in full — and answered in a way larger than the one he had asked for.
So hear this, you who are still waiting. Your unanswered prayer is not unheard. The silence you are enduring is not absence; it is the long pause before a faithfulness you have not yet glimpsed. The lifting has been decided. It was decided at the throne before your tears began. What feels to you like nothing is the unhurried work of a God who finishes everything He starts. He sets on high those who are lowly — and if you are low this morning, that is not the end of your story. It is the very condition the verse was written for. You are not too far down for Him. You are exactly where His hand reaches first.
Rise, then — not because you feel lifted, but because the One who lifts has already turned His face toward you. The answer is on its way. It was always on its way.
Watch & Reflect
A Prayer for Today
Faithful God, I have prayed, and I am tired of waiting. Forgive me for measuring Your love by the speed of Your answer. When I cannot see what You are doing, teach me to trust that You are doing it still. Hold me in the silence. Lift me in Your time, not mine. And until the lifting comes, steady my heart with the truth that You set the lowly on high and carry mourners to safety — and that I am not forgotten. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.
prayer are you still waiting on this morning, and how might it change your week to believe the lifting has already begun, even where you cannot see it? Share a line in the comments. It may be exactly what another reader needs to hear today.
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Today’s reflection is written by Johnbritto Kurusumuthu, inspired by the verse shared this morning (18 June 2026) by His Excellency, the Rt. Rev. Dr Selvister Ponnumuthan — a cherished practice he has faithfully continued for over three years.
RISE & INSPIRE · Wake-Up Calls · Reflection 164 / Post 1059
© 2026 Johnbritto Kurusumuthu. All rights reserved.
