Dharius Daniels - How to Deal with Unanswered Prayers

Have you ever felt that it’s one thing when people say you didn’t have faith, but it’s another when you know you had faith? You may not have even had the amount of faith that you wanted, but the Bible says it doesn’t take big faith to do big things. Jesus said all I need is faith the size of a mustard seed, and mustard seed faith can move mountains. Many of us know there were seasons in our lives where we at least had mustard seed faith. I’m not saying I had the most faith in the world, but I had mustard seed faith. Have you ever believed for something to live that you watched die? You watched the vision die, the dream die, the business die, the ministry die, and the relationship die, and you had faith. When something you wanted to live dies, it affects your faith. Where are my honest people at here? I mean, come on! When you were confident, bold, convinced, and convicted, and then when all that confidence and conviction manifest themselves in something you wanted to live dying, it’ll shake that faith a little. This is what I call faith trauma. It’s a result of a disturbing and disappointing experience in the past that affects your ability to believe big in the future. It’s not that I don’t believe; I just believe with boundaries. This is what I call safe faith. I believe for the unlikely, not the impossible, because the unlikely is safe. The unlikely keeps me from being disappointed. The unlikely could actually be accomplished with just a little bit of God’s help. If I just work hard enough and God helps me a little bit, I can accomplish that. Peter is suffering from this. Pastor Darius, what else is he suffering from? Not just disappointment in God, but also disappointment in himself. Yes, sir! What do you mean? Because prior to Jesus’s death, Peter had made all these promises. He looked at Jesus and said, «I’m a real one. I don’t know about all these other ones, but when it all shakes out, I’mma be here. I’m with you. I’m ride or die.» Jesus said, «Man, please! Before this rooster crows in the morning, you will have denied me three times.» Peter was talking heavy; he was talking big—he wasn’t the little one; he was talking spicy! Jesus said, «Man, please!» And before that rooster crowed the next morning, three times he denied Jesus. So, he’s not just disappointed in God; he’s disappointed in himself. Have you ever been disappointed in you? When you’ve made promises to yourself: «Never again! This was the last time I take that. This is the last time I accept that. This is the last time I do that. This is the last time I allow that.» Have you ever made promises to yourself and had to look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself off? Let me go to this side over here. I want to talk to some people who are honest enough to say I’ve had to tell myself off sometimes and just look in the mirror and say, «You’re just gullible; that’s what you are. You’re just weak; that’s what you are. You just fall for anything; that’s what you are.» He’s disappointed in himself, and I say this disappointment is mismanaged because it’s mismanaged in his activity. While the text says in John 21:3, Peter says, «I’m going out to fish.» Let me tell you why this is significant. It’s significant because Peter says, «I’m going back to fishing.» When Jesus called Peter, he called him out of fishing. This is what he was doing prior to meeting Jesus! My God, my God! Jesus said, «I want you to follow me, because from this time forth I’ll make you a fisher of men.» So, not literally but metaphorically, what this can represent for you and me is how mismanaged disappointment will drive you back to what He called you out of.