Moses led his people through the desert for forty years. At the very end, standing on the far side of the River Jordan, he asked God for one thing: “Let me go over, I pray Thee, and see the good land.” The answer came: “Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto Me of this matter” (Deuteronomy 3:25–26). The greatest prophet of the Hebrew Bible heard “no”.
Perhaps you have too. You prayed for someone to get better and they did not. You prayed for a job, an exam result, a phone call, and nothing came. It can feel like talking to an empty room. This page looks at what each faith says happens to an unanswered prayer, what scientists found when they tried to measure prayer, and why many believers say “no” and “not yet” are answers too.
“Let me go over, I pray Thee, and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly hill-country, and Lebanon. But the LORD was wroth with me for your sakes, and hearkened not unto me; and the LORD said unto me: ‘Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto Me of this matter.’”
Deuteronomy 3:25–26 · JPS 1917
Moses retells this in his last speeches to the people. Jewish tradition says he prayed hundreds of times before God told him to stop. God then shows him the land from a mountaintop, and Moses dies there. The prayer was refused, but he was not abandoned.
What happened when scientists tested prayer
In 2006 a team led by Herbert Benson of Harvard published the largest study of prayer for the sick ever carried out, called STEP. It involved 1,802 heart-bypass patients in six American hospitals. Some were prayed for by Christian groups, some were not, and some were told for certain that they were being prayed for. Prayer made no difference to recovery. Surprisingly, the patients who knew they were being prayed for had slightly more complications: 59 per cent, against 51 per cent of those who were not prayed for. The researchers suggested that knowing might have made them anxious.
The researchers themselves said what the study could not show. It did not test whether God exists or answers prayer, and it could not control the prayers of patients' own families and friends. Many believers say the study misunderstood prayer from the start. Prayer, they argue, is not a medicine to be given in measured doses, and a God who could be tested like a drug would not be God.
Psychology has studied what prayer does for the person praying. Kenneth Pargament and colleagues found that ways of coping that draw on faith, such as seeking God's help, finding meaning or feeling supported, tend to go with better adjustment after hard times. Feeling punished or abandoned by God tends to go with worse. What people believe about God matters to how they cope.
The strongest believing answer goes like this. Prayer is first a relationship, not a request form. A good parent does not grant every wish: “if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?” (Matthew 7:9). Sometimes the answer is no because the gift asked for would harm, or because something better is coming, or because the person praying is changed in the asking. The sceptic replies that if unanswered prayers count as answers, nothing could ever count against prayer. Believers answer that a relationship with God cannot be tested like a vending machine. Both sides have a point worth hearing.
What each faith says
Judaism
“How long, O LORD, wilt Thou forget me for ever? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me?”
Psalm 13:2 · JPS 1917
Jewish prayer includes a great deal of honest complaint. Hannah prayed “in bitterness of soul” and wept (1 Samuel 1:10). The Talmud teaches that even if a sharp sword rests on your neck, you should not stop praying for mercy (Berakhot 10a). It also teaches that some prayers are “in vain”, such as asking for something that has already happened (Mishnah Berakhot 9:3).
Moses heard “no”, and David prayed for his child, who died. Judaism keeps both prayers in scripture, with no attempt to tidy them away. The Hebrew word for praying, lehitpallel, is often explained as a reflexive verb: to judge or examine oneself. Prayer changes the one who prays.
Christianity
“He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:9 · World English Bible (British Edition), public domain
On the night before he died, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire” (Matthew 26:39). The cup did not pass. Paul begged three times for an affliction he called a “thorn in the flesh” to be taken away, and was given a different answer, quoted below. Paul also wrote that when we do not know how to pray, the Spirit prays in us “with groanings which can't be uttered” (Romans 8:26).
C. S. Lewis pointed out in his essay The Efficacy of Prayer (1959) that the most perfect prayer ever prayed, in Gethsemane, was not granted. Christians therefore do not take a “no” as proof that God is absent or angry.
Islam
“And when My servants question thee concerning Me, then surely I am nigh. I answer the prayer of the suppliant when he crieth unto Me. So let them hear My call and let them trust in Me, in order that they may be led aright.”
Qur'an 2:186 · Pickthall (1930)
The Prophet Muhammad taught that no prayer is wasted. Whenever a Muslim prays for something that is not sinful and does not cut family ties, God gives one of three things. The prayer is answered soon, or kept as a reward in the next life, or an equal harm is turned away. When his companions said they would pray more, he replied, “God is more” (Musnad Ahmad 11133). He also warned against impatience. A prayer is answered, he said, so long as the person does not say, “I prayed and I was not answered” (Bukhari 6340).
The Qur'an adds a warning about what we ask for: “Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not.” (2:216, Pickthall). A famous saying of the Prophet is that “supplication is worship”: asking is itself an act of devotion and thanks, whatever the answer.
Without religion
For many non-religious people, the STEP study says what they expected: prayer does not change outcomes, though it may comfort the person praying. Robert Ingersoll, the nineteenth-century American freethinker, is often credited with the line “Hands that help are better far than lips that pray.” Humanists put their hope in medicine, friends and practical kindness, and many will gladly sit with a praying friend in hospital and hold their hand.
Sikhi
“Your will seems sweet to me.”
Guru Granth Sahib, ang 394 (Guru Arjan) · our rendering
Every Sikh service ends with Ardas, a standing prayer for the community and the world. It closes by asking for the good of all, sarbat da bhala, “by Your will”. Sikhs pray for help, and also for the strength to accept bhana, God's will, when the answer is not what they hoped. Guru Arjan wrote the line below, and Sikhs remember that he was tortured to death in Lahore in 1606, and is remembered as having held to that acceptance.
Hindu traditions
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna promises to care for those who worship him with devotion: “I carry what they lack, and keep what they have” (9:22). But the tradition also treasures a strange prayer. In the Bhagavata Purana, Kunti, mother of the Pandava brothers, asks Krishna to send her troubles again and again. In hard times, she says, she sees him more clearly. For her, the deepest answer to prayer was not comfort but closeness.
Beyond the Abrahamic faiths
Many Buddhists do not pray to a creator for things at all. They practise metta, loving-kindness, wishing well to themselves, loved ones, strangers and even enemies: “May all beings be happy.” The point is not to change the universe from outside but to change the heart from within. Pure Land Buddhists call on the name of Amida Buddha with trust.
Same and different
Each tradition gives prayer a different job. For Jews it is honest speech with God and a way to examine oneself. For Christians it is trusting surrender, as in Gethsemane. For Muslims it is worship that is never wasted, answered in one of three ways. For Sikhs it is asking within acceptance of the divine will, for Hindus a relationship of devotion, and for Buddhists a training of the heart. For humanists it may comfort, but it changes nothing outside. All of them, believers and not, say the same thing about the people you pray for: go and help them too.
A moment to reflect
- Moses and Jesus both prayed and heard “no”. Does that make you trust their prayers more, or less?
- The Prophet Muhammad said a prayer can be answered by a harm being turned away. How would you ever know?
- Is it fair to say “no” is an answer? When might that be true, and when might it be an excuse?
- Kunti asked for troubles so she would stay close to God. Have hard times ever made you closer to someone?
Do it together
For a week, each time someone in the family prays or wishes for someone, add one action for that person: a message, a visit, a meal. At the end of the week, talk about what changed.
Read the hadith of the three answers, 2 Corinthians 12:7–9 and Deuteronomy 3:23–28. Make a poster with three columns: ‘yes’, ‘not this, but something else’, ‘no’. Can you find a story from each tradition for each column?
Each person shares one short prayer for others from their tradition (a Mi Sheberach, a line of the Lord's Prayer, a du'a, the end of Ardas, a metta wish), or a non-religious hope. Say them one after another for the same person or cause.
Go deeper
- Prayers don't help heart surgery patients (Harvard Gazette, 2006) · article
- Supplication answered in three ways (HadeethEnc) · scripture
- Deuteronomy 3 (Sefaria) · scripture
- Qur'an 2:186 (Quran.com) · scripture
- How do we pray? (this site) · find out more
In pictures
Sources (10)
- Deuteronomy 3:23–26, Psalm 13:2, 1 Samuel 1:10 text: Sefaria, JPS 1917
- STEP: 1,802 patients, six hospitals, 59% vs 51%; what it could not show: Harvard Gazette, April 2006 (Benson et al., American Heart Journal 2006)
- Three answers to prayer; ‘God is more’: Musnad Ahmad 11133, via HadeethEnc (graded authentic)
- Answered unless one says ‘I prayed and was not answered’: Sahih al-Bukhari 6340
- Matthew 26:39, 2 Corinthians 12:8–9, Romans 8:26, Matthew 7:9 text: World English Bible (British Edition) via bible-api.com
- Never despair of mercy even with a sword on the neck: Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 10a (Sefaria)
- Prayer in vain: Mishnah Berakhot 9:3 (Sefaria)
- Religious coping and adjustment: Pargament et al., ‘Patterns of positive and negative religious coping’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (1998)
- ‘Supplication is worship’: Jami' at-Tirmidhi 2969
- Kunti's prayer: Bhagavata Purana 1.8.25 (Vedabase)
