Learn to appreciate some of the reasons why you are waiting for your answer. God is working things out for you in spectacular ways!

Christians get kind of touchy when God doesn’t answer one of our prayers in a ‘timely manner.’ We roll our eyes, make no sense out of the delay and put God on the stand to defend His apparent ‘non action’ on our behalf.

We should offer some grace to God inasmuch as He has richly graced us. So this devotional will help us cut back on our complaining and whining and give God some appreciation for what He must do to fulfill our prayer lists. He receives billions of prayers daily.

First, recognize that God answers every prayer. You’ve never uttered an ‘unanswered prayer.’ Consider God’s responsibilities when answering our prayers.

• There is God’s law of Timing. God operates in the eternal yesterday, is active today and lives in the eternity to come. He may already been involved in answering a prayer you’re just about to mouth. (“… before they call, I will answer.” Isaiah 65:24 KJV)
• There’s law of Internal Contradictions. We may be praying for more patience and God delays the answer to help us grow our patience. He must work on the answer we really want while forced to make us wait while we are wanting patience ‘right now.’
• Then there are issues of External Contradictions – we’re asking for sunny skies on Saturday for our church picnic when the farmer on adjoining land desperately is asking for rain. We’ve got to give God time to work these kinds of issues out (according to His will… not ours.)
• Next, there’s the Law of How – Heaven will reveal God’s tapestry in all its meticulous glory. But the back of His work will stop us in our tracks as we see the intricate stitching that brought it all together! Our “now, please” may not allow God’s purposes to come together with the right answer. St Augustine was not always a saint. His Godly mother pled with God to keep her wayward son from moving to Rome. To her it was the wrong place for her prayer to answered, but it was in that ‘evil city’ that God had prepared the man who led him to Christ. It was the right person at the right time and wonderfully answered his mother’s deepest prayer.

Queen Esther came out of obscurity to become the answer to her people’s death sentence. No one saw that answer coming as it did. (book of Esther) Likewise, teenage shepherd David also came out of obscurity to be the answer Israel needed.( I Samuel 17)

As long as you’re praying, give God permission to answer you in His time and in His way.

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer,

believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Mark 11:24 NIV