Faith keeps the door open when hope seems lost.
By Fr Joby George VC
There are moments when prayer seems to have reached its limit. We have asked for the same grace through many days, months or years, and the silence has begun to weigh upon the heart. We may still come to church, still kneel before the Blessed Sacrament and still use the language of faith, yet somewhere within us a complaint has formed: Lord, why have You not answered? Why have You allowed another person to receive quickly what I have sought for so long? When that disappointment is left unhealed, it can create distance, bitterness and a quiet weakness in our relationship with God.
At the beginning of this retreat session, I invited everyone to place such disappointment before the Lord and to ask for the grace to pray, even without understanding, “Thy will be done.” Then we listened to the Gospel account of Jairus. His only daughter was dying, and he fell at the feet of Jesus, begging Him to come to his house. Jesus began the journey, but before they arrived, a messenger brought the words every parent would dread: “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any more.” Humanly speaking, the prayer had reached its expiry date. Yet Jesus said, “Do not fear; only believe” (Luke 8:49-50).
That word is at the heart of what I want to share: give Jesus one more chance. I do not say this because Jesus has failed and needs another attempt. I say it because disappointment can cause us to withdraw the very place in which we once welcomed Him. We may ask Him for one more chance for ourselves, while He is gently asking us, “Will you give Me one more chance to enter this situation? Will you keep walking with Me even after hope appears to have died?”
Keep the Door Open to Jesus
During the retreat I asked how many people were attending for the first time and how many had already attended several retreats. Imagine that someone arrives for the first time, asks for a particular grace and receives it almost immediately, while another person has come for five years, prayed for the same intention at every retreat and still sees no answer. Our spirituality is tested at that moment. It is easy to praise God when His gifts arrive according to our expectations; it is much harder to rejoice in another person’s blessing without concluding that God is partial or that something must be wrong with us.
The positive way of receiving such a moment is to recognise that this is the Lord’s doing. We do not need to understand every difference in timing before we can love Him. Nor should we allow jealousy towards the person who has received a grace. We can appreciate what God has done for them, continue to trust His power in our own life and refuse to nourish a grudge against Jesus. The unanswered prayer may still hurt, but the hurt need not become a closed door.
We human beings become tired of giving chances very quickly. In the seminary, I was trained for different positions in volleyball. People thought I might become a good spiker because, in those days, I was not this big and they assumed I could jump. Soon they discovered that I could not jump high enough, so they moved me to the position of setting the ball. That did not work especially well either. I tried basketball and different positions there, and eventually the instruction became very simple: play wherever you want. Sometimes a player is still given the jersey but spends the whole match on the bench because the team has lost confidence in him. We can treat prayer in the same way. After repeated disappointment we leave the intention on the bench, convinced that there is no point in giving it another chance.
A few days before this retreat, a person came to speak with me about serious struggles in life. Many human possibilities had been tried: advice from family, changes of direction, changes of work and other efforts to repair what had gone wrong. When I asked about church and prayer, the person said that these had become less regular, partly because life was busy and partly because being a good human being seemed sufficient. As we prayed, one thought came strongly to me: “Why don’t you give Jesus a chance?” The person had often prayed, “Jesus, give me one more chance. My choices and sins have damaged my life. Give me an opportunity to become better.” But this invitation reversed the prayer. Jesus was now asking, “Will you give Me one more chance?” That word touched the person deeply.
This is the question for us as well: is the house still open? Is the part of your life connected with that prayer still open to Jesus, or have you closed the chapter because hope has gone? In Revelation, the Lord says, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me” (Revelation 3:20). Eating together in the biblical world is a sign of communion, joy and celebration. Jesus does not knock merely to inspect the house from the doorway. He asks to enter and restore fellowship.
The image of eating made me smile that morning because I woke to the aroma of food being prepared and briefly imagined that Fr Antony had made a special breakfast for me. When I came out, there was nothing waiting for me; the aroma was only an appetiser for the lunch that would follow the session. Yet the humour points towards something important. When Jesus entered the house of Jairus, the home that had become a place of mourning was changed. He took the child by the hand, raised her and told the parents to give her something to eat. The meal became a sign that life and celebration had returned.
The same pattern appears when the prodigal son returns and the father prepares a feast, and when Jesus stands before the tomb of Lazarus. Martha and Mary had sent word while their brother was ill, but Jesus arrived only after Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. The sisters knew the reality of death and even warned that the tomb would smell. Jesus did not ask them to deny the facts. He asked them to open what they had closed and to believe that the facts were not the limit of His authority. Christian hope is not pretending that death, illness, failure or loss is unreal. It is keeping the door open to the One whose power is greater than what we can see.
Faith Must Carry Personal Hope
Many of our prayers change with age. When I was a small child, I prayed for a plastic truck. As a teenager, I wanted a good badminton racket because my friends had one. When I became interested in cricket, I prayed for cricket balls. In the seminary, especially as a last-minute student, I prayed for good marks. After becoming a priest, I discovered another sincere intention: “Lord, give me good sleep.” By God’s grace, I am sleeping well. Our prayers naturally follow the stage of life in which we find ourselves.
The danger is that when a stage appears to have passed, we decide that the prayer must also be buried. Zechariah and Elizabeth had undoubtedly prayed for a child, but old age made the hope seem unreasonable. Abraham and Sarah faced the same human impossibility. Sarah laughed when she heard the promise because she knew her age, yet the Lord answered, “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14). We may stop expecting, but God does not become unfaithful because our timetable has made the promise difficult to imagine.
The prophet teaches that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies are new every morning and His faithfulness is great (Lamentations 3:22-23). Psalm 105:8 adds that He remembers His covenant through a thousand generations. We are not dealing with a God who gives only when He expects a return, as human beings sometimes do. God remains faithful to His word and to His children, even when we do not understand the manner or the timing of His gift.
Hebrews defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Hope is not an optional decoration added to faith; it gives faith personal substance. If I say, “God can do everything,” but then conclude, “He will never do anything for me,” my belief remains general. I possess the container called faith, but the container is empty. Hope fills it with the trust that God’s power and faithfulness are not only truths about Him in general but realities upon which I may personally depend.
This is why I often distinguish between two words: can and will. We readily say that God can heal, save, provide, forgive and transform. Jeremiah hears the Lord ask, “I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27). The difficulty comes when the question changes from “Can God?” to “Will He act for me?” The first question is general; the second enters the heart. Hope does not claim that we can dictate the exact outcome, but it refuses to believe that God has forgotten us.
At Caesarea Philippi, the disciples could easily report what other people were saying about Jesus. The question became demanding only when He asked, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered personally. Thomas came to the same place after the Resurrection. His confession was not simply “our Lord and our God,” but “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Mature faith must finally become this personal relationship. Even while the answer remains unseen, I can say: You are my Lord, I belong to You, and I will not withdraw my hope from Your hands.
Hope therefore does not mean announcing that every prayer will be fulfilled in the precise form we imagine. It means trusting the faithful God while we continue to pray, discern and act responsibly. Jairus did not know what Jesus would do when the message of death arrived. He simply remained with Jesus. That continued companionship is already an act of hope: the situation has changed, the news is terrible and I do not know what comes next, but I will keep walking with the Lord.
Do Not Put God Inside Your Timetable
We naturally organise life through time limits. We pray, “Lord, I need this tomorrow,” and then we may even design the route by which God should provide it. If I need ten thousand dollars, I may inform Him that a friend has twenty thousand in the bank and suggest that He inspire that friend to give me half. Beneath the humour is a real spiritual problem. We do not merely present our need; we assign God the deadline, the method and sometimes even the person He must use. As the clock runs down, anxiety grows, and when our deadline passes we decide that the prayer has failed.
Jairus had every reason to hurry Jesus. His daughter was close to death, yet the journey stopped when a woman suffering from a haemorrhage touched the fringe of His garment. If I had been in Jairus’s place, I might have said, “Jesus, please do not waste time. This is my appointment. She should not jump the queue.” The Gospel does not show Jairus dragging Jesus forward or demanding control of the journey. He allowed Jesus the freedom to stop, speak and minister to another person. What looked like a disastrous interruption did not remove Christ’s authority over the house to which they were walking.
I learned something about expertise through the father of a close friend in my hometown. His family worked in carpentry, and we asked him to make a small bench for our house. He promised it for a particular evening. During the days before delivery, I repeatedly visited the workshop, pretending that I had come to see my friend while secretly searching for the shape of the bench. Nothing seemed to be happening. Even at noon on the final day I could see no sign of it, so I concluded that the work would not be ready. That evening my friend came to tell me to collect it. His father, an expert, had completed in about an hour something better than I had expected.
When I came to Australia in 2015, I began to enjoy mowing lawns. Fr Michael and I had an arrangement: he used the ride-on mower, while I worked with the whipper snipper. I genuinely enjoyed it, although I would take several hours, use a great deal of line and finish with an aching back. One day a volunteer offered to do the same work. What took me about four hours, he completed in one, using less petrol and less line and walking away comfortably. He understood the machine and the task in a way I did not. The limits of my method were not the limits of his ability.
These simple experiences help me recognise how easily I measure God by my own speed and imagination. I look at the small amount of time remaining and decide that even He cannot complete the work. Yet the Creator of time is not imprisoned inside the clock He created. Saint Paul says that even “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:25). What is beyond my understanding is not beyond His power. Even when a situation appears too late for me, I must give space to the Lord rather than force Him into the boundaries of what I can comprehend.
Surrendering time does not mean passivity, carelessness or the neglect of duties. It does not mean refusing medical care, delaying an important decision or ignoring practical responsibilities while waiting for a miracle. It means faithfully doing what belongs to me while releasing the demand that God must act according to my schedule. The prayer becomes: Lord, I place my time in Your hands. Keep me obedient today, and do not allow delay to turn my heart bitter.
I know the anxiety of time pressure because I have often described myself as a last-minute person. In my studies, I could delay until the available time was almost gone and then pray intensely for good marks. But when anxiety fills the mind, even the remaining time is difficult to use well. Faith invites us to surrender not only the final result but the clock itself. “Jesus, do it in Your time” is not an excuse for laziness; it is the trust that prevents urgency from becoming fear and fear from becoming unbelief.
Let God Rearrange Your Preferences
Sometimes God not only changes the time of an answer; He changes the order of what we receive. In Mark 2, a paralysed man is carried by four people and lowered through the roof into the presence of Jesus. Everyone expects the same thing. The man wants strength in his body, his friends want to see him stand and the crowd is waiting for a visible healing. Jesus first says, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” The physical need is real, but Christ addresses a deeper need before commanding him to rise, take up his mat and walk.
Naaman arrived before the prophet Elisha with his own preferred method. He expected the prophet to come out, invoke the Lord and perform the healing in a way that matched his imagination. Instead, he was told to wash seven times in the Jordan. He became angry because the gift was not being offered in the manner he had planned. We can do the same. We want God’s grace, but we also want control over the sequence, the instrument and the experience through which it comes.
A man once told me about a severe toothache that lasted longer than he expected. The infection made eating and speaking difficult. He prayed for healing and became frustrated because an illness that might ordinarily have settled within a week took about two weeks. During those days, however, a serious conflict developed between his class and a professor. He was normally outspoken and knew that, had he been able to speak freely, he might have confronted the professor in a way that endangered his degree. Only later could he laugh and say that the toothache had prevented him from creating a greater problem. The delay he disliked had carried a protection he had not requested.
I tell that story with the same caution with which it was shared. We should not romanticise illness, refuse treatment or assume that every delay hides a reason we will later discover. The spiritual lesson is narrower and more important: our first preference is not the only grace God can give. While we wait for one answer, He may be protecting us, correcting us, deepening us or granting blessings for which we never thought to ask.
This leaves us with two questions. Do we recognise the graces that arrive outside our list of intentions? And what happens within us when God does not address our preferred intention first? The paralysed man still received strength in his body after his sins were forgiven. Naaman was healed when he surrendered his method. The delayed answer is not necessarily the forgotten prayer. God may shuffle our preferences without abandoning His faithfulness.
The proper response is not to stop asking but to allow the prayer to mature. We can speak honestly about what we desire, while also praying with Jesus, “Not my will, but Yours be done.” Hope remains alive because we trust the One who hears us, not because we control the form of His answer. When the preference changes, faith says: Lord, help me recognise the grace You are giving now, and keep me ready for the good You may yet provide.
Faith Forms Holy Choices
The Letter to the Hebrews does more than define faith; it shows faith becoming visible in the decisions of God’s people. Moses was hidden by his parents because they were not afraid of the king’s command. When he grew up, he refused to be known merely as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and chose to share the suffering of the people of God rather than enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin (Hebrews 11:23-26). His faith did not remain an idea in the mind. It changed what he valued and what he chose.
Hebrews even says that Moses considered suffering connected with Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. Moses lived centuries before the Incarnation, yet the passage reveals the unity of God’s saving plan. Christ is not confined within our human chronology. At the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus, while the eternal Son is before all ages, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The prophets received light from the same saving mystery that would be fully revealed in Christ.
The point for our daily life is that true faith forms holy choices. If I say that I trust Jesus but repeatedly choose what separates me from Him, my faith has not yet been allowed to shape my life. Hope does not make holiness unnecessary. On the contrary, the person who believes that God is faithful receives courage to refuse the temporary pleasure that damages the soul and to choose the lasting good that may involve sacrifice.
Saint Peter tells us who we are: “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,” called out of darkness into His marvellous light (1 Peter 2:9). This is not simply an honourable title placed upon us at Baptism. It is an identity that must become visible. Faith filled with hope, surrendered timing and yielded preferences makes us more attentive to the Holy Spirit and more willing to choose what pleases God.
We are still growing into this faith. None of us should pretend that every decision is already holy or that surrender is easy. But when faith becomes personal, it begins to transform us. It gives us the desire to be holy, helps us resist sin and teaches us to obey what the Holy Spirit speaks within the conscience. The same faith that keeps us from giving up on an unanswered prayer must also keep us from giving ourselves permission to live carelessly.
Give Jesus One More Chance
Perhaps you have carried one prayer through many retreats and many years. Perhaps somebody else received quickly what you have asked for repeatedly. Perhaps the deadline has passed, the diagnosis has become serious, a relationship appears lifeless or the future no longer resembles what you planned. The Lord does not ask you to pretend that these things are small. Jairus knew that his daughter had died. Martha knew that Lazarus had been buried. Faith begins with the truth, but it does not allow the truth we can see to become the final measure of God.
Give Jesus one more chance by opening the door again. Bring the intention back into prayer without resentment. Allow Him to enter the room you have closed, to touch the wound you have protected and to decide the time, order and form of His grace. This may include accepting help, making a responsible decision, seeking reconciliation, changing a sinful pattern or simply remaining faithfully beside Him while the answer is still hidden.
We are not giving Jesus another chance because His first effort was inadequate. We are allowing our own heart to return from disappointment. We are saying: Lord, I still believe You can act, and I ask for the hope to trust that You have not forgotten me. I release the timetable I imposed upon You. I release the method I demanded. I release my jealousy when another person is blessed, and I ask You to make my faith personal, obedient and holy.
The God who walked with Jairus is still faithful. The delay did not defeat Him, the message of death did not turn Him back and the laughter of the mourners did not diminish His authority. Keep the door open. Keep walking with Jesus. Even when hope seems lost, give Him one more chance.
Pastoral note: Prayer and spiritual discernment should accompany, not replace, appropriate medical, psychological, safeguarding, financial or legal assistance. Trusting God’s timing does not require neglecting responsible action, delaying necessary care or remaining in danger.
Adapted and edited from Day Retreat Session Two, delivered by Fr Joby George VC at Holy Family Church, Doveton, during the July 2026 Divine Australia programme.