Unanswered Prayers

Today at work, we had a special speaker on account of the National Day of Prayer. He read a brief article from Ravi Zacharias, in which Zacharias interacts with part of the story told by Jon Krakauer in Into the Wild.

It's a very brief article -- click here to read it. At the risk of "spoiling the ending" (or, you could pause now, read the article and come back!), I want to repeat the last two paragraphs because I think they are well-worth repeating:

Is prayer a mechanism to bring whatever we want within reach? Is that what it is about? If that is what we think of prayer, then prayer is just a euphemism for
playing God.

Prayer is something far different because it begins with the grand realization that God is sovereign and wise. And what is more, it shapes our
souls to bear what His will is for us, not to shape Him to bear our will. When a
man renounces God because of unanswered prayer he is doubly proving that he
wants to play God himself and will not yield until he can. That is not seeking
God. That is using God. Ron’s problem was not with prayer. His was a struggle
with God’s wisdom over his autonomy. Until that is understood, one’s prayer is
nothing more than a form of control, not surrender.