I remember several years ago a friend exclaimed, “Won’t God ever answer my prayers?” When pressed for an answer my response was, “Yes of course, but it might not be in the way we expect for Him to.
When the answer is “yes,” God’s answer to our prayer matches with what we asked for. We enjoy this response because it’s in line with our intent. When the answer is “no,” we are often set back. After all this is not the answer we hoped for, so we often interpret the “no answer” as God has not answered our prayers when in fact he has. When the answer is “wait,” this response from God can be hard for us to receive. We are not good at waiting. But God sees the bigger picture and He knows that timing, His timing, is always perfect. For example, suppose a child comes to their mother 5 minutes before she is to serve supper and he says, “Mom, I am so hungry! Can I have a cookie?” How do you suppose she is going to answer? If she is like my mom, she will more than likely say, “Not right now, but you sure can after dinner!”
The child is not asking for the wrong thing, it is just not at the right time. Sometimes the same can be true as it relates to our prayers. It may not be that we are asking for the wrong thing, it is that God sees the benefits of His answer coming later.
This Sunday we are going to pick up our series on the book of Acts in the 12th chapter. A portion of scripture that begs all of us to consider some difficult concepts and wrestle with some powerful questions.
