01/31/2023
I wish God moved according to my timetable. I know that sounds a little petulant and spiritually immature, but it’s the truth.
I have prayed specifically for ten years for something near and dear to my heart, and God has yet to answer my prayer (the way I want). I have prayed for miraculous healings, and they didn’t happen. I have prayed for marriages to be restored, and they ended in divorce. I have prayed for young people who have wandered from the faith, and they still remain far from the faith.
You may be thinking it wise not to send your prayer requests to my inbox. But I don’t think I’m alone in this regard.
Even the Apostle Paul confesses his persistent prayers for God’s removal of his “thorn in the flesh,” and yet God didn’t answer his prayers the way he wanted (2 Corinthians 12:7-8). God answered Paul’s prayers in a better way than Paul originally expected.
And this is the lesson so hard for me to learn. Our Lord said, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9, ESV). God did answer Paul’s prayer, not by removing his “thorn,” but by developing Paul’s character. Jesus said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9, ESV). Paul learned the hard way that reliance upon God’s provision is not a sign of weakness but of strength.
A hard lesson to learn indeed. I wish God were more visible, that His miracles were more punctual. I assume if I could see God better or know more details, then faith would be easier.
But easier isn’t always God’s plan. As Paul Miller writes, “When God seems silent and our prayers go unanswered, the overwhelming temptation is to leave the story—to walk out of the desert and attempt to create a `normal’ life. But when we persist in a spiritual vacuum, when we hang in there during ambiguity, we get to know God. In fact, that is how intimacy grows in all close relationships” (A Praying Life, 196).
If God answered all our prayers exactly the way we want and when we want, we would never grow. We would never emerge from our chrysalis, because we would be forever dependent. God wants more for us. He wants us to conform to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29), and there is nothing easy about that.
As it has been said many times before, if we want to experience resurrection, we have to go through death. The good news for the Christ follower is that death is swallowed up in victory, and it has lost its sting (1 Corinthians 15:54b-55). Whatever God’s timetable may be for that to occur in our lives, it is well worth the wait.
