“And an angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah, standing to the right of the altar of incense.Zechariah was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear gripped him. But the angel said to him, ‘Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John” (Luke 1:11-13).

They’ve been waiting. They’ve been remembering. They’ve been preparing. And now they are expecting.

But let’s be honest, this wasn’t expected (Lk. 1:18-20). Even though it was an answer to prayer (cf. Lk. 1:13), it wasn’t one of those prayers you really expect God to answer, like a ‘traveling mercies’ prayer, or that wildly daring one about food being miraculously transformed into “the nourishment of our bodies.” This was a specific prayer. That’s the kind of prayer that leads to trouble, because as soon as you start asking God for things to happen that don’t ordinarily happen you have to start looking God in the face—and that’s where you’ll have to return to ask why it hasn’t happened yet. Specific prayers are fighting prayers.

Keeping it generic helps us preserve a professional distance. Nobody’s personal space is violated. Nobody has to expect much from anyone. Praying for God’s will to be done in Elizabeth’s life is one thing, but praying that God would put a baby into Elizabeth’s barren womb is quite another. The answer—yes or no—will be empirically verifiable now. Everyone’s personal space is violated, God’s, Elizabeth’s, and the one standing in the gap between them trying to build a bridge between heaven and earth. Prayer like that has no social boundaries. That’s why most of us don’t pray like that. We’d rather just agree to live parallel lives and avoid the discomfort that often comes at the intersection.

God answers prayer. God does not answer prayer. Both statements are true. Word it however you want to try to soften it or stick up for God—“God answers every prayer, just in ways we don’t understand”—but that does no good. That’s just an excuse to never look God in the eye. Nor is it true that if a prayer hasn’t been answered the problem is the faith of the praying person—the problem is that God didn’t answer the prayer. The only thing worse than people who smear every prayer into an enigmatic “yes” are those who lie about the unambiguous “nos.” I’ve heard people talk about prayer as something that only needs to be “claimed,” as though God had no say in the matter, as though God were not a Person. I’ve heard people lie about God answering prayer. I’ve seen ministries based on that lie. Those ministries are not about God acting. They are about people acting like they are gods. They are about people reaching up into heaven’s treasury and grabbing whatever the hell they want—if only their faith is tall enough. But human faith gets little larger than a mustard tree. And sometimes God doesn’t answer prayer. People who say God answers every prayer are people who have never prayed.

But Zechariah prayed. And he prayed at the intersection. That’s where my mother prays too. Zechariah prayed for a son to be born who could not be born. Elizabeth was barren. My mother prayed for a son to be found who was irreversibly lost. No enigmatic yesses were possible. God would answer her prayer or God would not. And for at least twelve years, from the volatile ages of 10 to 22, he did not.

I once was preparing on a sermon on prayer and texted my mom (because that’s what sons do when they need something from their mom—they text them) and asked her what prayer life was like “when I was going to hell in a hand basket. Please email response” Below is an excerpt from she wrote:

Subject line (all caps): “NEVER CONSIDERED FOR ONE SECOND TO HELL IN A HAND BASKET” (reprimanding tone noted).

…I knew God wanted you more than I did. So, while I was extremely concerned, sad, and experienced many sleepless nights, I never really landed on the thought you would be lost. My prayer life deepened so much during that time to the point of wordless groanings and moanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8). But I knew God was faithful…

The curious thing about my mother’s unanswered prayers is that they did not have a distancing effect but a deepening effect. With each unanswered prayer she dug down deeper into God’s heart, so as to say, “Fine. Then I’m moving in—and I’m bringing all my burdens and my baggage with me. And I’ve got A LIST of names. Deal with it!” Her prayer moved from trusting to entrusting. Truly, my mother has no boundaries. There is no personal space in her life. She’s like a bridge with a winch on it. Some people have a prayer closet. She has a prayer lasso. Seriously, spend a day with her and you’ll know what I’m talking about. I tried my hardest to go to hell. My mom just wouldn’t let me (cf. Jude 1:23).

I once heard my father in-law say, “When you don’t see the hand of God, just know you can trust the heart of God.” The only people who say things like that are people who actually pray—because it makes no ordinary sense. As humans, there is no other way to determine how to trust someone, because hands are expressions of the heart. But this or that answer to prayer can never communicate the depths of God’s heart. And it may threaten to brings us only to God’s hand. That’s what happened to the Exodus generation. They starting out “groaning” into God’s heart (Exod. 2:23-25) and quickly ended up “grumbling” at God’s hands (Exod. 16). So God reserves only one place where his hands can be called the perfect expression of his heart (Jn. 1:18). It’s the one place he commands everyone to look to see his heart right through the center of his hands. It’s at the intersection, where Christ closed all the gaps. That’s where God prays.

Prayer is like a tuning fork. A tuning fork is tuned to one key, and only one key. It will vibrate if it gets close enough to something else vibrating in the same key. This is called resonance. St. Augustine once said, “You have made me for yourself, O Lord, and my heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.” He was talking about resonance. Whether it knows it or not, the heart is trembling in its longing for a gracious God. That trembling feels like fear–and it should, considering–so we don’t expect to find any resonance with God. But it turns out, a gracious God is the only God there is. God has one Word to so say to this world, and he wrapped It in swaddling flesh to say it. In so doing, that enfleshed Word became receptive on our behalf. In Christ, we are tuned to the key of God. But it has always been there, at the center. David heard it. David’s salvation didn’t come by asking God “into his heart.” It came by storming his way into God’s heart. David took up residence there. Where else could he go? The Law condemned him. But God didn’t. That’s why you can hear the Gospel resounding before it even sounded in Psalm 51. Resonance.

God uses prayer to bring us close enough to himself that our hearts get in tune with his, because that’s how he changes our hearts. He shakes the grace into us. In time, it’s the life of prayer itself that proves God is gracious and can therefore be trusted with everything, even and especially with our sin. He’s a God who found a place for sinners right at the center of his heart. We come to know God’s heart when we resolve to bury ourselves inside it, baggage and names in tow. Eventually, no set of circumstances can drown out that piercing sound of infinite grace and the island of peace it creates (Phil. 4:4-7!). Even when the answer is still no, even if I am being marched to the sepulcher, even when the sun forebears to shine—Even so…Amen.

But then, one day, God answers—because God does answer prayer—and the circumstances are changed. Zechariah’s world is changed. Elizabeth is expecting. And frankly, he’d stopped expecting it. Zechariah will have to reframe. But that’s tomorrow’s word.

For now, amen.