Unanswered Prayer Part 1 -- The Intro

We're spending the next two Wednesday addressing the issue of Unanswered Prayer with our students. We're in the midst of a 5 week series called "Move on Our Knees." The goal is to recapture a heart for prayer.
I'm inviting you into my personal prayer journey over the past months in a series I'm going to call "Unanswered Prayer."

For many of us, at some point for some reason, we've given up on prayer. One big reason is because we convince ourselves we're no good at it. At the root of that thought is the fact that we have lost faith in the power and effects of prayer due to some prayer we have offered in faith, only to see that prayer seemingly go unanswered.

For 5 1/2 years, Janelle and I have been trying to start a family. We have been to the doctors to run tests. We have visited specialists. Outside of some minor issues that could account for struggles in becoming pregnant, we both seem to be healthy and able to "reproduce."
In these 5 1/2 years, there have been many times of prayer together, on our own, for us, and over us. On one occasion, as we prayed together with another person, we sensed a promise from God that we were going to bear and birth a child within a year. That was 2003... 2007, no baby. Somewhere along the line, I began to say, "I trust God in this." I think I did, but I refused to accept that I was questioning God at the same time. I don't know when it happened, but I stopped praying about the situation completely.

Last Spring I found myself in a spot where I no longer had a personal prayer life. Sure, I would pray with others, pray before meals, pray in front of the youth group, pray over students... but I was no longer taking time on my own to engage with God in conversation. I would think about Him, journal about Him, talk about Him, read about Him... but I would rarely if ever do any of those aforementioned things "to" Him. Ironically, I never put the two together... not seeing an answer to our prayers for a child and the stopping of my prayer life.

But I was about to go on a journey that would force me to lean into where my prayer life was, and where God was wanting to take me...