He never sleeps. He never slumbers.
He watches me both night and day.
He never sleeps. He never slumbers.
The reason I know - He told me so.
He watches me both night and day.
He never sleeps. He never slumbers.
The reason I know - He told me so.
One thing I hope that you got from my message is that delayed answers to prayer always have a purpose. Let's expand on a couple of the points, shall we?
1) When answers are delayed, consider how God is preparing your life for what He has for you. Ask God what He is trying to say to you or what He wants to change in your life. God always has a plan, and part of His plan is to use things in our lives (including having to wait for an answer to prayer) for good.
He wants to accomplish something, so the best thing you can do is cooperate with that. Start seeking not only answers to your prayers, but answers to the question of what God wants to say to you and what He wants to change in you.
2) When answers are delayed, understand how God speaks in your life. If all you are listening for is the answer to your prayer, you may not hear what else God is saying to you. You will hear God best in the context of worship. If you are living your life as an act of worship to the Lord, you are much more likely to hear Him speak to you.
As a side note, part of our worship involves fellowship with believers, so it is important to be in regular fellowship with others in the body of Christ (i.e. Sunday services, small group, one on one, etc.). Why? Because sometimes God speaks through other people!
3) When answers are delayed, recognize how God evaluates your life. While you're waiting, evaluate your life and spend some time asking God what your life message is. Ask Him to show you opportunities to share His love with others, and ask Him to help you be an example of His grace to those around you.
If you put all of your faith and energy into praying fervently for an answer, you may put your life and your ministry on hold. That would mean a lot of missed opportunities to let God use you in the lives of those around you.
What are your thoughts? How do you respond to delayed answers to prayer? How do you deal with waiting for an answer? Talk to me!
This most recently occurred over the past year. I was diagnosed with cancer, my job started 3-day per month furloughs and then my husband was out of work due to injury for 3 months time. I had no idea how the finances would work out. We were praying consistently, trying to keep the faith. I truly believe that is when He started telling me to get back into fellowship. I continued to pray and be still to hear Him and it was "wait"! I was feeling discouraged and wondering why He was making us wait. I soon learned that my aunt had left the proceeds of her home sale to me and my siblings. God knew it was not time to release the money until it was EXACTLY the time when we truly had the need. It turned out to be nearly the exact amount missing between the disability employment and my furlough days and lasted until my husband went back to work. He knew that if we had received it any sooner it would have been lost and not there when we truly needed it. God is AWESOME. This was also instrumental in turning me back to his word and back into fellowship. Previously I was always impatient and would eventually decide it was no, and give up praying. In this day and times of "instant" gratification, it's easy to fall into the trap unless you are rooted and grounded in His Word. Thanks for the message Pastor!
ReplyDeleteI think that God answers the prayers of His Children immediately. I think that many times God answers our prayers before(sometimes MUCH before)we pray them.
ReplyDeleteI think that in general we are really lousy at seeing God's answers. We tend to be looking for 'one-word' or 'bottom-line' or 'true/false' answers and fail to watch as God works through the 'problem'.
Do you remember your math teacher telling you to 'show your work' and even marking a 'correct' answer wrong when you failed to do so? Do you remember that it was only as you observed and understood the steps IN BETWEEN the statement of the problem and the 'answer' that you really understood the math involved. And only then were you able to understand how the same principles applied to other 'problems'
Perhaps it may of occurred to you that the 'answer' to the problem started immediatly after the problem was stated, and that the final result was just the last step in a process whose every step was beneficial to your learning.
That's the way God answers prayer. He knows exactly what is best for us and what we need (far better than we do, in fact). When we pose a 'problem' to God He always 'shows His work'. Sometimes the 'work' is really short (like 2+2=4). We 'get' these kinds of problems/answers (and tend to thank and praise the Lord for them). Sometimes the 'work' that God needs for us to see has several (or many) steps. Most of us are so fixated on seeing the 'answer' (which is only a tiny part of THE ANSWER that we are being given) that we fail to follow God as He 'shows the steps' that will probably benefit us even more than what we think is 'the answer'. And sometimes God is forced to repeat the steps over and over because of our failure to 'get it' - this really frustrates us because it drags out the answering process further (and we think it's GOD who's dragging HIS feet!)
Expect your prayers to be answered immediately. Don't miss out on the steps between the 'problem' and the so-called 'answer' or you'll miss all the good stuff.