(SPOILER ALERT for the Series Finale of Star Wars: The Bad Batch) As I sit here pondering the finale of the Star Wars: Bad Batch series, I find myself torn… sure, it was a fair and fitting conclusion to this incredible story of a group of “defective” and unwanted clone troopers who overcame the odds, stood together, and defied the Empire. It was an inspiring story of those who took what were considered to be limitations and honed them into their greatest strengths. But there was something that I was REALLY hoping for in the series finale that never came to pass… something that I wasn’t just wishing for, but something I fully believed would happen. Final “Spoiler Warning” for the series finale… I was rooting for and hoping for the return of my favorite member of the Bad Batch team, CT-9902, better known as Tech. Now to be fair, nobody ever promised us that he would return… as a matter of fact, the series flat out told us that he was gone, and that his final act of sacrifice resulted in him giving his life to save his crew. But the news of his demise was relayed to us by a villain and his body was never found… only his smashed goggles were recovered. The combination of these details gave me as well as a massive group of fans just like me a flicker of hope that perhaps Tech, with all of his gadgets and technical wizardry, had found a way to survive this fatal fall after all and would show up just in time to save the day. And clearly, I wasn’t the only one…

As I went into series of episodes that represent the final season for our Bad Batch heroes, I kept waiting for Tech’s resurrection from a grave that he didn’t deserve… an off-screen death that could easily be undone by a little good ol’ fashion “deus ex machina”. So many Star Wars characters over the years have returned from FAR less challenging circumstances, from “somehow Palpatine returned” to Asajj Ventress coming back from her death in a canon novelization to return to life in this very series without any explanation. Star Wars is a place where both heroes and villains survive circumstances that appeared to lead to their demise all the time… so surely the Bad Batch would find a way to finish their series with a happy ending that reunites all of the members of the squad one last time. There were numerous ideas on how he could have survived his fall… and in a Star Wars universe were Darth Maul was literally cut in half but returned as a half-man, half-spider hybrid, surely Tech could find his own path to a well-deserved resurrection. But the series finale came and went, and as all of the surviving members of the Bad Batch sat together and reflected on their story (minus one), Tech never returned to the team… because he’s not going to. Because he really is gone… his sacrifice would not be undone, and this time the Bad Batch would not cheat death. They would simply deal with it.

As a fan of Star Wars, I accept that these are all fictional characters… and as such their lives, as well as their deaths, are meant to tell a story. And Tech’s life, as well as his death, certainly told an unforgettable story of a clone who became so much more than what his background would have indicated. He is the reason the rest of his squad survived and completed their mission… calling out “Plan 99” and refusing to follow orders one last time for the good of his comrades, sacrificing his life to save them all. But as respectful to his decision as the finale to Bad Batch was, it still didn’t give me what I truly wanted… a glorious reunion of every member of the Bad Batch team sitting around a fire and enjoying their well-earned retirement. And I didn’t get it… I didn’t get what I had hoped for… what I had wished for… what I had believed was coming. Even though it was never promised to me or even hinted at by the writers of the series, I still felt let down, sad, disappointed, and even a little bit bitter… because even though I had no reason to believe that Tech would ever return, I was still expecting my full happy ending. They’ve done it for other characters that I was less invested in, so why not this time? So many other characters in Star Wars and across all of the other fictional franchises that I follow have found a way to return… but not Tech. It would have been so easy to bring him back, and so many less deserving characters have enjoyed a miraculous resurrection… but as the credits rolled and his return never materialized, I realized that this “nerd prayer” of mine and so many others would go unanswered.

Tech’s fictional endgame represents a disappointment that we all have to deal with in our real-world lives… that as a Christian, sometimes our prayers go unanswered. This has been one of the most difficult areas of my personal life to reconcile… when the Father doesn’t answer my prayers. He doesn’t say yes, He doesn’t say no, He doesn’t say maybe or wait… He just doesn’t answer at all. I call out to the heavens… I cry, pray, mourn, fast, and do everything I know to do to get His attention on my request, turn His ear towards my cries, and use the power that I know He possesses to change my situation. I have no question about the Lord‘s ability to answer and deliver… I’ve seen it displayed many times. He has performed countless miracles in my life, the lives of my family, and others that demonstrate His remarkable compassion, His incredible omnipotence, and His perfect timing. So when He doesn’t answer at ALL, we can be left watching the credits of our own unanswered prayers crawl across the screen and wonder, “Why?”. The deadline comes and goes, the family member we were seeking healing for passes on, the job we thought would be perfect for us is filled by somebody else, the doctor gives us the news we didn’t want to hear, or the person that we loved tells us that our relationship is over… and we are left to pick up the pieces of an unanswered prayer. What do we do now? What do we do when our deepest and most personal prayers, the ones that mattered the most, the ones we KNOW He could’ve answered, come back without a response? What happens when we, as a Christian, have our most urgent messages to the Lord left on “read”?

Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.

The Scriptures tell us that the Lord is full of mercy and grace (Psalm 145:8-9), He hears all of our cries (Psalm 40:1), and He collects every one of our tears in a bottle (Psalm 56:8)… which makes it so much harder to understand when He doesn’t give us the ONE thing that we are asking for that would relieve our pain and save the day. We know He delights in doing that, so why wouldn’t He write us a better, happier ending? The truth can be a little uncomfortable and unpleasant to digest, but if we’re going to solve this problem, we need to find the secret to why there will be times that the Lord will allow the deepest and most intimate of our prayers to go unanswered… it’s not because He doesn’t care, but because He sees beyond our limited vision into a future that wouldn’t occur any other way.

Normally, when I open my Bible, I’m searching for passages of encouragement that remind me of the Lord‘s provision for His people through the toughest of times… the miraculous stories of His divine intervention when He gave Abraham and Sarah a miracle child years after they had given up hope, or the way He saved Joseph from an undeserved life in prison and placed him into a position as a prince of Egypt. I look over the Scriptures and see all of the miracles in which the Lord has provided everything that was needed for His followers JUST in the nick of time… and those verses encourage me in my darkest times, reminding me that His ways are higher than mine (Isaiah 55:9). I trust in Him and have faith that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose”, so surely it will all work out for me… right?

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Many times in the book of Acts we find examples of the Lord’s miraculous protection and provision… we see Peter being saved from execution by an angel, Paul and Silas been rescued from prison by an earthquake, Philip being transported from one place to another, and the list goes on and on. But then we find the story of Stephen, the man in the Bible I was named after, and his remarkable faithfulness to the Lord in the face of persecution (Acts 6-7). As Stephen stood tall and gave an impassioned sermon that demonstrated necessity of Christ as well as anybody I’ve ever seen, the people violently turned on this loving servant of Christ. The angry mob decided he should be put to death by stoning simply for having a view that Christ was the son of God… but as I read the chapter, I was certain he would be rescued by the same Lord who had preserved His loyal followers so many times before. Surely He would step in save the day, prevent his death, or at least provide another “resurrection event” the way He did with his friend Lazarus. But as the moment of his execution drew near, Stephen looked up and saw a remarkable sight… the very heavens opened and he could see the Son of God looking directly at him. Something unprecedented was happening… but not in the way we would have imagined. Jesus didn’t come down and stop the barrage of rocks from striking Stephen, He didn’t change the hearts of the crowd, and He didn’t miraculously transport Stephen away from danger. Instead, Jesus stood to His feet and simply welcomed His faithful servant home.

Matthew 11:2-6 And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to Him, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”

The actions of Christ here reminds me of the final days and the unanswered prayers of John the Baptist… an incredible man of God who gave his life for his ministry. And when the imprisoned John reached out to Jesus to seek understanding on his situation, Jesus simply responded by saying “blessed is he who is not offended because of Me”. Why would John be offended? Well, the same reason we get offended by the Lord sometimes…because John didn’t get the answer he was looking for… he would ultimately be executed in prison for his uncompromising faith in God. As hard as it was to understand at the time, John the Baptist had to go to make way for Jesus to walk His path, and Stephen’s death would become the impetus for the Apostle Paul’s incomparable ministry. And in these situations where it seems that the Lord “let us down”, His words to John the Baptist ring true across the ages… “Blessed are those who are not offended because of Him”. The Lord is not lacking in compassion or interest in our situation, but there are some parts of our lives that are going to take us through the valley of the shadow of death… that’s a guarantee (Psalm 23).

His encouraging message for us is to “fear no evil” and allow His rod and staff to comfort us as we move through a situation that we would prefer not to pass through. We are not provided a detour around this valley simply because we are following Him… there will be times we MUST walk through the valley and those times will be hard. Sometimes that means that our prayers will go unanswered and we will see our dreams dissipate into vapor. Sometimes we will see clear situations when the Lord could give us exactly what He has given others, and it’s not always going to make sense the way we’d like it to when He doesn’t… but these unanswered prayers are a part of our journey we cannot avoid. He never promised to be a vending machine… He simply promised that if we trust Him and aren’t offended by His response (or lack of response), we WILL be blessed.

As I reconcile the loss of my favorite member of the Bad Batch (and honestly one of my favorite and most personally relatable Star Wars characters), I realize that the emotions I’m feeling are pretty similar to all the other times when I reached out to the Lord in prayer… only to find that the credits rolled and my miracle never came in. Star Wars has miraculously brought back SO many characters that I didn’t even care about… but the one time I really REALLY wanted them to break the rules and make it happen, they didn’t. Perhaps Tech’s return would have made the rest of the story play out in a manner in which the final ending DIDN’T result in a happily ever after for the rest of his crew. Or maybe it would have simply diminished his sacrifice and cheapened the entire narrative. Regardless of the reason, the truth is that I will never get to know why… I just have to choose to be grateful for what I received and accepting of what I don’t understand right now.

Similar to all the other times when the Lord has provided for me in my time of need, it is always hard for me to understand why He wouldn’t do it this time… and the honest answer is that I never will. I will never understand why some of the loved ones I prayed for were miraculously healed, and others are now at home in His arms. I will never know why some of the situations in my life were remarkably and miraculously resolved, and other times He remained silent. Sometimes He intervenes, and other times He simply makes His presence known. Sometimes He breaks us out of the prison we are in, and other times He encourages us to remain faithful as we endure these heart-breaking circumstances. But here is the encouragement I speak to myself and share with you as well… this period of unanswered prayers that we are enduring WILL work out for good for those who are called according to His purpose. We just have to keep in mind that it is always according to HIS purpose, not ours. As Christ Himself found in the Garden of Gethsemane, if the Father doesn’t answer our prayers in the way we would prefer, there is a VERY good reason why. Let’s end every prayer request with the heart of Christ and say with meaning, “Not my will, but Yours be done”. And if we are at peace with His will in every situation, then we can find peace with every answer we receive… even when He doesn’t answer at all.

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