Participants: Shelley Quinn (Host), Pavel Goia
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000281
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00:29 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn and welcome again to Issues and
00:33 Answers. You know this is a program where we take an issue 00:36 that we believe is important to many of because you write 00:39 and talk to us about these things and then we try to 00:43 answer that. Our issue today is unanswered prayer. So if 00:47 you know anyone who's struggling with this, and how 00:50 many of us haven't, why don't you call them right now and 00:53 tell them to tune in. Joining us again today is 00:57 Pastor Pavel Goia and he is from the Jainesville, Wisconsin 01:01 district where he has three churches. 01:03 Pastor Goia, thank you so much for coming back. 01:07 Thank you for having me here. 01:08 You know, I know that our viewers are really learning to 01:12 love you and they are really appreciating what you have been 01:17 sharing because you are a man of real prayer. I should say 01:21 you are a man who has a real, intimate, personal relationship 01:25 with the Lord and God has taught you how to become a man 01:31 of real prayer and that takes a man of real faith. But you 01:35 and I have talked independently when we're off the air and we 01:40 all have those occasions where we have unanswered prayer. 01:44 That's what we want to focus on today. Have you ever felt 01:48 discouraged, have you ever felt impatient, have you ever felt 01:52 anxious when you have an unanswered prayer? 01:56 Absolutely. In fact, my temperament is so fast that for 02:02 me it will be very easy for me to work but very hard to be 02:06 quiet or to be still or to wait. That's a punishment for me. 02:11 So when I ask God for help, 02:12 I want the answer and I want it now. 02:16 How many of us are like that! You know, Pavel, I typically 02:19 start this program with a scripture, and when you said 02:22 that, I realized the scripture that I should have used to 02:26 begin is Psalm 26:10 where God says, Be still and know that 02:31 I am God. But that is not easy, is it? 02:35 No. The more difficult thing for us humans is to wait upon 02:39 the Lord. We feel good when we do things. To wait and not to 02:42 be certain what to do and what direction we go, that's very 02:46 difficult and that's a faith exercise that we need sometimes. 02:50 But, Pavel, I have friends, and I have a friend right now who's 02:53 going through quite a bit and she is saying, God's being 02:57 silent. What have I done to offend God? He's not leading 03:01 me, I don't feel his guidance. There are other people who you 03:05 talk to and they'll say, I've been praying and praying and 03:08 praying and God's just not answering my prayers or 03:10 sometimes they'll say, My prayers don't go any higher 03:13 than the ceiling. What would you say to someone like that? 03:16 In my churches, we had a seminar about unanswered 03:21 prayers. In a few sermons, we went into this subject and I 03:25 use my very first Bible verse from Hebrews chapter 11. 03:29 In verse 35, it says that by faith they have been protected 03:34 from sword, from death, from prison and then in 37, by faith 03:38 they had been killed by sword, went into prison and lost their 03:42 lives. So same faith, two different outcomes. 03:48 That's profound; I really had never 03:51 made that comparison there. 03:53 So prayer and faith are not about how we want the 03:57 answer, when we want the answer, but prayer and faith 04:01 are about trusting God. It's all about trusting our God. 04:06 I love my dad. He passed away, but when he was alive, I loved 04:10 him when he had money to give me and when he didn't give 04:14 me money because he didn't have any. I loved him the same and 04:18 I trusted him the same. We trust God when we see the 04:22 answer and when we don't see the answer, because we trust 04:25 him for what he is. 04:26 You know, personally I have found that if I rush into 04:32 a prayer, and when I say rush, if it's just a 15 minute prayer 04:36 or even a 20 minute prayer, I find that I don't often hear 04:40 from the Lord because I've got all of this that's on my mind 04:45 and my mind won't be still. Sometimes it takes me praying 04:49 an hour or two hours where I'm really prayed up or prayed 04:53 out and pressing into his presence. Then I can be still 04:57 and the Lord has impressed his thought by the power of his 05:01 Holy Spirit on my mind. He doesn't every lay out the whole 05:05 plan for me but he will give me something that I can hold 05:09 on to, some kind of direction. Now there are times that I 05:13 feel that the reason we don't get an answer from God is 05:16 because we don't hold still long enough to listen for 05:19 the answer. But there are other times that we know we're praying 05:22 for something according to his word and his will and we're 05:25 still not getting an answer. 05:27 Have you had that type of an experience? 05:28 Absolutely. For instance, when I was praying to go to a school 05:32 and I sent like a Europe. Nothing would come back. 05:35 I didn't know, does he want me to go to school, or maybe he 05:39 does but it's not the time. How long do I have to wait? 05:43 Where would I go? It was very hard to wait and not get an 05:48 answer. And this is very strange; when finally I gave 05:51 up on the idea of going to school. As long as I was 05:55 fighting and trying and thinking about a school, nothing would 05:59 come. When I gave up on school and I said, I'm going to pray 06:03 pray for a week and I leave it to you, and I'm not even 06:06 thinking about it; that's not my problem anymore, my 06:09 problems are your problems because I'm your son, then 06:12 God solved it and just after I gave up. I'm going to give 06:16 you another example. I wanted to sell a Nissan Altima while 06:20 I was in Romania long ago. 06:21 You wanted to sell what? A car, a Nissan Altima. 06:24 A Nissan Altima. Your accent came through there. 06:29 And I put it for sale, it was a good car, running 06:34 smooth and nice, and nobody wanted to buy the car somehow. 06:37 So I went to the market. It's a car market in the west of 06:41 the country and people came to see the car and my car would 06:46 not start, first time in two years. My car would always 06:49 started right away. The car didn't start. So I got a little 06:52 frustrated. I said, God, why the car doesn't start? Do you 06:56 want me to keep the car or what? So I gave up selling 07:01 the car, went home. Forgot about selling the car. Six 07:05 months later we got the papers to come to America and we needed 07:09 money for the plane ticket. So somebody shows up at the 07:15 door and says, Six months ago you had a car for sale in the 07:20 newspaper. Do you still have that car? My wife wants a 07:25 Nissan Altima. And we sold the car right before coming, so 07:29 we had money for the plane tickets. 07:30 What I'm hearing you say is that when we pray, now we've 07:37 got to remember first that God hears the prayers of those 07:42 who have clean hands and a pure heart. So we need to repent 07:46 and confess our sins and make sure that there's no sin that's 07:50 standing in the way. But if we're in the right position, 07:54 and we have confessed our sins and we are abiding in Christ, 07:57 what I hear you saying is that sometimes when we pray and we 08:03 don't get an answer is that it's not God's perfect timing yet. 08:09 You have a saying; would you repeat it about God never 08:13 being early, how do you say it? 08:15 God is rarely early, but he's never late. 08:18 He's rarely early, but he's never late. 08:21 So sometimes when we think God is not answering our prayers, 08:25 he's up there saying, Be patient because I've got the perfect 08:29 timing to give you the answer for this prayer. 08:31 Then, you know, there's a song, it could be a country-western 08:36 song, forgive me, but I've heard this one and it's something 08:40 about thank God for unanswered prayers. There are 08:45 some times that we're praying for something and we can look 08:47 back and the answer did come, we just didn't recognize it. 08:52 The answer was no. And we look back in the past and we're 08:56 going, Oh Lord, thank you that you didn't answer that prayer. 09:00 We are in God's hands. We are God's children. We should pray 09:05 for the sake of God's presence and when we pray to experience 09:10 his presence everything else will pale in his presence. 09:13 We would forget if we would contemplate his presence. 09:16 I'm thinking more and more about a lady who came. I remember I 09:24 remember I was talking to a different pastor and we were 09:27 there and she came and she was sick and she asked for prayer. 09:31 There were another two persons sick in the church. One had 09:35 cancer, one had rheumatoid arthritis, and from the three 09:39 of them we prayed for all three. Two were healed and one passed 09:43 away. How do you explain. We prayed for the same people, the 09:48 same prayer, the same faith. So sometimes God answers in a 09:53 different way in a different time. God has his plans, his 09:58 time. But we don't prayer for our will to be done. We must 10:04 agree to enjoy and to accept his will. 10:06 Amen, Amen. And, you know, one thing I take a lot of comfort in 10:11 is Romans 8:28 which says that, All things work together for 10:16 good for those who love God and are called according to 10:19 his purpose. Now if you took that scripture as some do, as 10:22 a stand-alone scripture, it doesn't always make sense. 10:24 How can you tell a woman who's just lost her husband and her 10:27 children in a car accident, well God works all things 10:30 together for good? If somebody said that to me in those 10:35 circumstances, I'd want to sock them. But we can't separate 10:40 that from Romans 8:29 which explains Romans 8:28. He's 10:45 working all things together for our good, it says in 10:50 Romans 8:29, because those he foreknew he predestined to be 10:56 conformed to the image of his son. What that tells me is 11:00 everything that our loving heavenly Father does is for 11:05 our eternal benefit. I prayed once so hard for a friend of 11:09 mine. Her sister was dying of cancer. The Lord had raised her 11:14 up once before and when he raised her up, she turned her 11:17 back on God. When the cancer returned, she got closer to God 11:21 than she ever had been. We prayed for her healing, but the 11:25 Lord told me to take my friend outside and explain to her 11:30 that if my friend, who loved her sister so much, had to 11:35 trust God that if he could see that if he raised Laura up 11:39 that she would turn her back on him again. God would prefer 11:43 to let her have a little shorter life here on earth and keep 11:47 her secure for eternity, 11:49 than to raise her up and let her turn her back on him. 11:52 We have such a short vision because compared to this short 11:57 life, when we put eternity in the scale, to live with God 12:02 for eternity, these troubles are not even worthy to be 12:06 considered. And if God can do something good from something 12:11 God has to power to do something good from a mess. He can turn 12:16 a mess into a blessing. So he doesn't want us to go through 12:20 difficulties, but God certainly can turn them into a blessing, 12:25 and can use them for something good if we trust him. 12:27 You know, part of this is that as James said that we should 12:33 rejoice in our trials. Sometimes I believe that as 12:37 James says, he's testing our faith and he sees the potential 12:41 in us is the way I look at it. He's trusting us with this 12:46 trial. Are you interested in rocks at all? Absolutely. 12:50 Okay, so you know when you find an old rock and it can 12:54 just be covered with all of this stuff and you put it in the 12:57 tumbler and it tumbles and it tumbles and it tumbles till 13:00 it polishes up and it gets rid of all that stuff on the outside 13:04 and when you bring it out then it's this beautiful, shiny 13:07 onyx or whatever the stone may be. Sometimes we have to 13:11 stay in that tumbler and let God just get some of the 13:15 dross off of us as he would put gold into the fire, and I 13:20 think that's the reason why he doesn't answer some of our 13:24 prayers in our timing is because he knows we are not 13:27 ready to receive the answer. 13:30 Moreover, I believe he answers all prayers. It's just in our 13:33 definition answer means what we want. 13:35 In God's definition, answer means what he has for us. 13:39 So God answers in his power, in his love, in his time, in 13:44 his way. Sometimes we don't see it right away. 13:47 Sometimes it may be a little different, 13:49 but God answers all honest prayers. 13:51 Pavel, can you look back in the past and think of the most 13:55 difficult time when you felt that God was not answering 13:59 your pray and just share your struggle with us. 14:05 Absolutely. When I was in Collegedale, and I already 14:08 shared a little of this story and also in Andrews, in a 14:11 foreign country, having allergy, being without a 14:16 sponsor, learning Greek and Hebrew from English, and I 14:22 didn't know English well, it was difficult. I used to give 14:27 when I had my business, never to receive 14:31 and I was very proud in that time. 14:33 So wait; I don't want to miss that point. You are saying that 14:37 you gave back to God from your business in Romania, but did not 14:42 receive and you took pride in the fact that you could give 14:45 and not need to receive because you were so blessed. 14:48 Now for me to be at that point to need help, I would rather 14:52 die that to ask for help. 14:54 Oooo, a little pride there, huh? 14:55 Oh yeah, we need to learn lessons. And I remember 15:01 going to the school and saying, I need to find some 15:07 work because I need to somehow pay my bills. I remember going 15:10 to God in prayer and walking to school crying and praying 15:14 and walking home and crying and praying and spending the 15:16 whole night praying and saying, God, this English is impossible; 15:20 they have no rules, they have just exceptions. Teach me 15:23 English. And then I would say, God, I cannot find enough work 15:27 to pay my bills, and to pay school and to pay insurance, 15:28 and to pay tuition and to pay books and, I mean, a lot. 15:33 I was overwhelmed and we hit rock-bottom. We said there is 15:37 no way out. There is nothing we can do. We don't have 15:40 anything up our sleeve. We cannot solve this. 15:42 So we called up before God and we said, God, it's in your 15:46 hands. You provide in your time. And God did a great 15:51 miracle, great miracles, every day, every step without us 15:55 asking anything. We didn't ask anybody for anything. 15:58 God just provided everything. 16:00 I know you have a lot of stories. You know something? 16:05 I know that we've talked about several miracles that God has 16:08 done in your life, and I mean true miracles. There was one 16:11 story, if you missed it before, when he was in Romania, owned 16:14 a business in a Communist regime and the Communists actually 16:18 took at least 55% of the business. You didn't really 16:22 own it yourself. At that time you had someone who was 16:26 saying to you, who oversaw this for the communist regime, who 16:30 was saying to him, If you don't start working on Sabbath, we're 16:34 going to put you in prison, and he refused. So the man, 16:38 actually, this agent of the government actually went to a 16:42 storage are, got some glass that had been stored outside in 16:46 boxes rotted from the weather and he brought it back and 16:50 the most amazing thing was that he put that in front of 16:55 your business on a Sabbath and then told you that it 16:58 actually had rotted while it was there even though he'd 17:04 brought it in that condition. Now tell us the rest of that 17:06 story, what happened, because I want to share that miracle 17:09 again. We had to cut it short before. What happened 17:12 and what did he say to you about that glass? 17:14 There were seven tons of glass and he knew that I could not 17:20 transport it back to the storage house, because it was 17:23 all rotten, the wood box. He said, If you can safely bring 17:28 it back then you don't have to pay for it. But if something 17:33 happens, you will have to pay for it or go to prison. 17:36 Pay for because it had been ruined and since the government 17:39 was your partner you couldn't waste anything. 17:41 Exactly. I was not allowed to waste anything. 17:45 So I hired a truck driver; it was a big truck that had 17:49 the crane behind the cabin and he put the cables around 17:53 the boxes like some shoulders, wood shoulders, that you hang 17:57 the boxes. He raised the boxes up and when he rotated them 18:01 in the air, the bottom of the boxes broke and the glass went 18:05 out, shoo, just slipped out from about seven tons of glass. 18:09 How much would that have been equivalent money-wise? 18:12 Fourteen thousand or more but at that time, for me that was 18:16 a lot. I could not have come up with that money. 18:19 So did you even have time when you saw the bottoms break out 18:22 and this glass start to fall out, did you even have time 18:26 to utter a prayer? No. 18:29 But for the last few months I was in the beginning 18:32 struggling because I didn't want to go to prison and I 18:35 didn't have that money to pay and then I started to 18:37 kind of instead of praying that I get help and freedom, I 18:42 started to kind of pray that God would do whatever 18:47 he sees was better for his name and his glory. 18:49 So I actually gave it to God and I said, Your time, your 18:52 will, whatever is for your glory 18:54 The glass, falling from the box, stopped in the air. You could 19:01 literally go like with your hand like that or like that. 19:05 It was seven tons of glass in the air. 19:07 Seven tons of glass just was suspended in the air, nothing 19:13 holding it up, nothing attached on the top. 19:15 This is an absolute total miracle. 19:17 The president, the secretary, the driver of the truck, myself, 19:21 people around on the street, neighbors, they were all like 19:26 mute. The driver of the truck, his knees were literally shaking 19:31 and he said, What do we do? I said I don't know. I could 19:35 not believe. I said, Who am I? I don't deserve this. God is too 19:38 good. I would imagine God could help me in the court 19:41 but not to stop the glass in the air. 19:43 That's like parting the Red Sea. 19:46 God never changes. He has power to do miracles. 19:48 God never changes. We have the same God. 19:51 So the man who had perpetrated this act on you by moving the 19:56 glass there, he's standing there as well. 19:58 Tell us the rest of the story. 20:00 The driver asked me what to do. I said, I don't know. 20:02 So he lowered the boxes. The glass would be still in the 20:05 air and the boxes would come and get the glass in and then down 20:09 together. The President said, You know what, you don't have 20:13 to pay, you don't have to move them, 20:15 you don't have to do anything. 20:17 This is the man who moved them there in the beginning 20:19 who was trying to put you in prison. 20:21 He said, Leave this place, move away from our business, 20:26 just don't curse me and my family. 20:28 Don't curse me? He knew that you were calling on a power 20:32 that was too great for him. That's amazing 20:35 But the reason I wanted you to share that story is you 20:40 have seen such amazing, I mean Pavel has seen such amazing 20:44 answers to prayer and you and I ask, Can this be true? 20:48 Why would God do a miracle for him when I haven't seen 20:51 him do anything like that for me and I believe personally 20:55 we hear all the time from missionaries from Africa and 20:59 India and Papua, New Guinea, missionaries who are coming 21:03 in, we hear stories of such incredible miracles and some 21:06 of us in the United States might sit and say, Why don't 21:10 we see these kind of miracles? Well part of the reason is 21:14 because we have so many resources and we have so much 21:17 available to us that it doesn't really require a miracle. 21:21 God can use someone else to answer our prayer, but it does 21:25 my faith such, I just gives me a surge of faith to hear this 21:30 story because it tells me when you're really down to 21:33 that point where man can't save... man couldn't save 21:37 anyway that glass from breaking. But God will step in and do 21:41 something that man can't do. And he was honoring your faith. 21:46 yet here's a man you have said that you've had miracle after 21:51 miracle to answered prayer and it's still difficult for you 21:55 when your prayers seen to be "unanswered. " It's something 22:00 that you struggle with as well. 22:01 Absolutely, absolutely. Prayer is not a one-time event; 22:06 prayer is a lifestyle and unless we spend every day in 22:11 time with God, we struggle. Every time when I don't spend 22:14 enough time in the morning then I am wondering why God 22:19 doesn't answer, why doesn't he help? So we must pray in 22:24 order to learn how to pray. 22:25 It's a practice. It's something that... it's just physicians 22:28 say that they are practicing medicine... as Christians we 22:33 need to be practicing prayer. So what would say if you could 22:37 tell those who are listening to our voice right now, if you 22:42 could tell them just one or two things that could change 22:46 their prayer time and connect them more closely with God, 22:51 what would you say as a beginning point? 22:55 I believe that we have wrong priorities. We care but we 23:01 but we don't care enough for prayer. We are afraid to 23:07 really pray because that might change our life and we don't 23:09 really want to change. Whoa, boy! that's a powerful 23:14 statement. So I believe sometimes God allows us to hit 23:18 the rock-bottom to realize what we really want. 23:21 And then we make the God the priority. We wake up in the 23:23 morning and start with God and throughout the day walk 23:27 with God and as we connect with him, we'll learn how to 23:30 trust him, we will grow like babies grow and we will learn 23:33 to experience our wonderful God. We have a wonderful, 23:38 powerful, loving God. Amen. For you when you were 23:42 actually quite young when you learned something it took me 23:45 many years to learn and that was not just to come to God 23:49 with a laundry list of what needed to be done but that 23:53 you're actually coming to prayer to what I call press 23:57 into his presence to get closer to God to know him. 24:01 What are some of the steps that helped you or help you? 24:05 Is it the Bible reading, the contemplating, the meditating, 24:09 what is it that helps you when you're trying to really get 24:12 to know God better? For me it is amazing, they go 24:15 together hand in hand. For me prayer is not just only talk; 24:20 prayer is when we study the Bible, is when we keep quiet 24:24 before God and listen to his voice. Prayer is when God can 24:28 talk to me to my very need in my very words through the 24:32 Bible all of the time reading, not looking for an answer but 24:34 reading my daily study, where ever I am in the Bible. 24:38 God can use it to talk to my need. For me prayer is when 24:42 God keeps quiet and I know he says it's not the time 24:45 right now. So prayer is a continual walk, it's a daily 24:49 with God. So for the person who is 24:52 sitting out there discouraged feeling like their prayers are 24:55 not going above the ceiling or that God is not answering, 24:59 or that God is being silent, what encouragement would 25:03 you give them? This is what I tell them: 25:06 When you go to prayer, stop for a second to pray for you 25:10 and to think about you. You are not going to die if you 25:13 don't pray today for your problems. Try for one day to 25:17 focus on Jesus cross and his love, his character and what 25:21 he has done for you and all those fears and switch the 25:25 focus from themselves and give themselves up for a day, 25:29 and switch the focus on God, they say that that was the 25:33 most blessed day they had. 25:34 So if you're having difficulty you feel like your prayers 25:37 aren't going anywhere, you feel like you're not hearing from 25:42 God, then your advice to our viewers is to go to God and 25:46 don't ask for anything, just go focusing on the cross of 25:50 Jesus Christ, thanking him for everything he's done, focusing 25:54 on what God has done in the past, the power, looking at him 25:58 as creator and just thanking him that he's the one who 26:02 redeems us and sanctifies us, and that is the type of prayer 26:06 that can change our lives. 26:07 Pavel, would you please pray for those who are listening. 26:12 Sure, I will be happy. Heavenly Father, 26:16 we come before you and we consider it a privilege to 26:21 contemplate your love and to talk about how to approach your 26:25 presence, how to pray. Father, we don't even deserve to come 26:29 before you, and yet you allow us to come before you as we 26:34 are to get to know you more and more. We pray that people 26:39 who have been watching this program, they will understand 26:43 who you are. They will understand how to pray and how 26:48 to get their right priorities, to put you right in the center 26:52 and they will understand that it's all about you. We pray 26:56 that they will get to know you, to experience you daily, 27:00 to trust you, to love you, to have peace and joy and let 27:03 you bless them and they will become a blessing for others. 27:07 Father, we pray in Jesus' precious name and we thank 27:12 you so much for answering our prayer. Amen. 27:16 Amen. Pastor Pavel Goia, thank you so much for being 27:21 with us today, for sharing the journey that God has taken 27:25 you on. Thank you very much for inviting me it was my 27:28 privilege. Well it's been our joy. 27:30 And for those of you at home, I hope you've been inspired 27:33 as I have been inspired to understand that there is no 27:37 such thing as unanswered prayer. God is either saying 27:40 yes, no or possibly he's saying wait for my perfect timing. 27:44 Well, now our prayer for you is that the grace of our Lord 27:48 Jesus Christ, the love of the Father and the fellowship 27:52 of the Holy Spirit will be with you today and always. |
Revised 2014-12-17