Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart. (Luke 18: 1)
He has made everything beautiful in its time. (Ecclesiastes 3: 11)
Are there things you’ve prayed about for a long time, but you still haven’t seen them come to pass? I have some of those, and I ask God at times, “How long, O Lord?”
Does this mean that God has not answered those prayers? He may not have answered them “yes,” at least as far as we can see at this time. Some prayers get a “no” answer because He can see ahead and knows that our short-sighted requests would harm us in the long run. But some of the prayers we don’t see results from have actually been answered, “Wait.”
I think of Zacharias and Elizabeth in the Bible, the parents of John the Baptist in their later years. They had prayed for a son since they were a young couple. When the angel Gabriel appeared to make the big pregnancy announcement, he said:
Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son. (Luke 1:13)
This was a prayer of theirs from almost 30 years earlier. They had prayed that prayer, and God had heard them. But the time was not yet right. Their son would have a role they couldn’t even have imagined. He would be the prophet that announced and prepared the way for the Messiah!
The issue of waiting a long time for a baby also calls to mind Abraham and Sarah. God had made a covenant with Abraham and had promised him that they would have a son and that Abraham would be the father of many nations. They waited…and prayed…and waited…and prayed…and waited some more. Unfortunately, they tired of the wait and decided to take matters into their own hands. The birth of Ishmael by Sarah’s servant has led to a multitude of hostilities, the results of which we watch every day on the evening news. (Oh, Lord, You know I’ve created some Ishmaels in my life, in too big of a hurry and deciding to just make things happen myself!) But the son of promise was finally born when Abraham and Sarah were so old, they had just about given up.
Here’s a big question: are you praying according to the will of God? If you are praying the principles in God’s Word, you can have that confidence. (Notice, I didn’t say, if you’re praying some remote verse taken out of context to mean what you want it to.)
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of Him. (I John 5: 14-15)
Notice that word “have.” It’s a present-tense verb. If you’ve prayed in faith for something that God has decreed in His Word, it has already happened in the spiritual realm. You just may not have seen it yet with your eyes. Isn’t that what faith is?
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen. (Hebrews 11: 1)
Patience, which is one evidence of the Spirit’s work in your life, is an important element of keeping the faith. God’s timing is not your timing. Often there are other pieces that have to fall into place in His big plans so that when He brings it all to pass, it will surpass what you even imagined. When the time is really right, and if your request is really right for you, you’ll see it happen. But first – that difficult wait.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. (Ecclesiastes 3: 11)
Luke 18:1 reminds us that we…
should always pray and not give up.
Jesus reinforces that principle:
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7)
In the original language, these three words – ask, seek, knock – have an ascending intensity. I don’t know about you, but I think I’m up to the level of knocking with some of my deepest prayers.
If you want God’s plans to unfold in your life and the lives of those you love – just keep asking, seeking, and knocking. Don’t lose heart! Just remember, God’s delays are not necessarily His denials.
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