Have you had the blessing of an unanswered prayer?

Have you ever thanked God for an unanswered prayer?

After you read this you may wish to consider when God didn’t answer a prayer only to discover latter that the unanswered prayer was a blessing in the making.

For many years I have had two passions, the first is teaching the Bible, the second is woodworking — making furniture in particular.

Wife and I spent several years trying to set up a non-profit lumberyard. The intent was to select people that had land but could not afford homes and provide them with the lumber. Everything was set the mill was in place, wood-handling equipment purchased the logs for the lumber was in the midst of being obtained, and several families had been selected. Then the Mat-Su Borough decided to finish paving the road that they had started on several years ago.

People in the neighborhood wondered why that small section of road was not paved, some were even angry about it. One night I received an email stating essentially that I was stopping the borough from paving that section of the road as it passed adjacent to my property. I called the O&M section of the borough the following day to ask the road engineer in charge of the project what the problem was. He then informed me that they would be starting on the road improvement in a few days.

I had some logs stacked partly in the road easement so I asked him if they were in the way. His response was simply “if I wanted them moved I would have told you to move them” a few days later the contractor for the road improvement started work on the road I repeated the question to him, he simply said “nope not in the way.”

A few hours later the borough engineer showed up, got out of his truck, and stared at the sign identifying the chapel. I started to feel uneasy. He then proceeded to instruct the contractor to move the logs completely out of the easement area. My concern grew as the road improvement progressed. Every contractor that worked on the road stated “I have never seen a road built like this.”

In the midst of the construction I was able to see the plans for the road. Long story made short, the plans were nothing like what was happening. The daily changes to the road frustrated the contractor. Several times he had to redo work that had been done to accommodate the borough. At one point I visited the borough office and was approached and told that the road was and would be illegally built.

At some point the borough started taking the existing road down, cutting off access to the area where the mill was, thus cutting off access to the mill for heavy equipment, not to mention our driveway. When my wife asked the engineer about how we were supposed to get our car back in the driveway, he responded, “that’s not my problem.” They cut a 6-foot vertical gravel wall literally within inches of my property line (the top of the ditch is my property line). I took the problem to the Lord in prayer then started my trek though bureaucracy.

I started with the community council. Their only comment was “we are just an advisory board, we can’t help you.” Then I went to the borough manager his response was “I’m just a figurehead, I can’t help you, besides the road was built with federal money.”

Ron Arvin was out of the country for several months, when I did finally get a response from him it was essentially “you only have the right in this borough to pay taxes for any other property rights hire an attorney.” I contacted Wes Keller and asked for an independent evaluation. Keller contacted the borough. The borough said the road was legal therefore it was legal. When I asked if he believed an accused felon if they were guilty or not, he refused to answer me. When I approached the general public and the media they didn’t seem to care. As the road seemed to have been paid for with federal money, I went to Sen. Mark Begich, Rep Don Young, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski. I did not even receive a response from them. One day an attorney needed my services, I agreed to help him if he took the case. “Finally,” I thought, “some justice.” He gave me his word that was only as good until I completed my end of the agreement. Out of options I gave up.

Over the next few years I focused my efforts on the shop, still operating the mill but on a much smaller scale. A few days ago I was operating the mill, the sun beating down. I was hot and exhausted. Suddenly it occurred to me — the Lord did not answer my prayer for the non-profit because he knew my heart was in a different direction. I would have had to give up my woodworking passion to operate the non-profit. I marveled at his wisdom, how he used people who were aware of what I was trying to do to shut down the operation. The Lord knew what was best for me.

Recently, I was speaking with another minster. He told me about how he had taken a terrible fall. As a result he had sustained some very serious injuries. When he had finished telling me about the fall he asked “I only wonder why the Lord wanted that to happen” like the road situation the answer may not be known for years, if ever. As always, I like to leave the reader with a question. Have you ever had an answered prayer? If so maybe you should thank the Lord for unanswered prayers. Maybe they were for your benefit.

Mike Blodgett is chaplain for Lighthouse Chapel. Contact him at lighthouse_chapelak@yahoo.com.

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