THE ANSWER IS IN THE WAITING
Psalms 27:14 Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
God’s timing and our timing is not always the same, and sometimes waiting can be difficult. John 11 tells about when a good friend of Jesus became very sick and died. His name was Lazarus and he had two sisters named Mary and Martha. When Jesus received news that Lazarus was very sick and near death, he did not go right away but told his disciples that his sickness would not end in death. Then after two day he went, but by the time he reached there Lazarus had been dead four days. By all appearances Jesus had been wrong. Now Mary and Martha were terribly grieved and felt betrayed by Jesus. They knew that Jesus had the power to save Lazarus’ life, but he deliberately did not. Jesus didn’t even have to come to Lazarus to heal him. Jesus had all authority to do it from anywhere but he didn’t. What must have made matters even worse was the fact that Jesus appeared to love Lazarus as well as Mary and Martha. Well, as you probably know Jesus raised him from the dead bringing a greater miracle than if he would have healed Lazarus to begin with.
Has God ever been slow in bringing about a miracle or answering prayer for you? Chances are he has, because it has happened to every Christian. Like with Mary and Martha it is difficult to wait for the Lord, and especially if he doesn’t answer at all or the way we wanted him to. Why does he do this when he can do it so easy and quickly bless us? The answer may be in the waiting. The more we wait on the Lord the closer we draw closer to him and depend on him. We need a new job. We found out about needing a new one several months ago, and now it is two weeks, one week, and now we still don’t have a job! Because of our free will God is testing us to see how we will react. Will we have a fit and get mad at him? Will we give up on him and turn to other resources? It is strange but in a person's life we will respond to his slowness in many ways.
Maturity in Christ, the amount of time we have known him and certainly how serious we feel the need is often will determine how we respond to Jesus’ slowness. While we don’t always respond the same way to the slowness, or what we feel is unanswered prayer it is never a good experience to go through. Unless we have come to the reality and commitment in our relationship with Jesus that our trust in him is unshakable even in the unanswered pray or the answer no. When we come to accept and depend on his always as doing what is best for us, we can have patience, peace, hope and even thanksgiving in the silence of our waiting or even no.
So what are we to do? I think the best thing is to continually remind ourselves that Jesus loves us, he will take care of us, he has all power and authority and most of all that he will always do what is best for us. Our prayer may not be the best for us even if we think so. We may be praying for a old junker of a car to get us by, when Jesus is moving on a person to sell there nicely taken care of car to you at a price you can afford. Waiting is always made easier in Jesus’ arms. Jesus wants to take care of you. Don’t give up on him, he certainly will not you!
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for always answering our prayers in a way that is always best for us. You are a wonderful God and Savior. We love you Jesus!
