Bruce's Book Blog

God on Mute: Engaging the Silence of Unanswered Prayer

By Pete Greig

2020. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“If your deepest, most desperate prayers aren’t being answered, if life sometimes hurts so much that you secretly wonder whether God exists, and if He does whether He cares, and if He cares why on earth He Doesn’t just do something to help, then you’re not alone” (p. 5). Though such statements might tend toward being a platitude, Greig avoids any hint of clichés or platitudes. He writes with empathy and poignancy, from personal experience and that of others. Unanswered prayers often weigh down believers, as we wonder why God seems so mute.

The final events of passion week outline the material, with the agony of prayer in the garden, the devastation of Good Friday, and silence of Holy Saturday, and the thrill of Resurrection Day. Christians typically jump right to Resurrection Day and forget that the Jesus, as well as his followers, walked through deep agony. They spent days wondering why things were happening opposite of what they believed God would do.

In the agony of Gethsemane, Jesus “found the greatest faith of all” (p. 146). We tend to think that God’s silence is a sign that He is pulling away from us, abandoning us. In those moments, little purpose is found. In truth, “faith grows by focusing on God’s goodness and greatness and it shrivels when we obsess about our problems” (p. 146).

Greig outlines fifteen reasons for answered prayer, five “from an analysis of God’s world (Chapter 8, five from an understanding of God’s will (chapter 9), and the other five from the present consequences of God’s war (chapter 10)” (p. 160). While the list is not a complete list (there’s not mention of husbands and wives, 1 Peter 3:7), there are novel, yet logical reasons given.

Grieg believes that “our unanswered prayers … are being stored up by God in those golden bowls and may, eventually, become our most powerful contribution to the world” (p. 312). He suggests the usage of lament when prayers are unanswered (p. 321). Simultaneously, we should remind ourselves of the all the good things God has done in the past, when our prayers remain unanswered (p. 306).

I found the book emotionally stirring, yet spiritually sensitive. It fulfills the promise of giving us reasons for unanswered prayers, while viewing it from the perspective of a fellow pilgrim who has also suffered the same situation. I know of no other book that details the problem as precisely, nor offers solutions with as much clarity. It is one of the best books I have read in 2026.