so also is my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It shall accomplish all I want it to and prosper everywhere I send it. – Isaiah 55:11 (TLB)
Expectations – they can be the making or the breaking of us. When we ask for something, we usually expect to get what we ask for. In most cases, we don’t want to hear the wrong answer, we want to hear what we want the answer to be. As humans, if we want something, we usually want it to get and to get it now. There is no “no” and no “wait”, we only want yes and right now.
Sometimes, when we ask for something, we expect people to say no or to wait but when they say yes, it comes as a happy surprise. The fact-of-the-matter is that when we ask for something, we want an answer, we don’t want silence. We usually don’t ask for something, we know we have to wait for, it is for something that we want now.
The Bible says that when we pray to God, that “whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:24 ESV). Most Christians take this at face value, but they forget that whatever we ask for must be aligned with God’s will for us. Thinking, that God will say “yes” because we believed it and then getting the unexpected answer of “no” or “wait” can be damaging to our faith. If believing that God will give me the desires of my heart and then getting them is what is all about then we are sadly mistaken.
God remembers one important thing that we do not and that is that our earthly desires are not our godly desires. What we desire may not be what God desires for us and therefore He will answer our prayer accordingly. It is always important to remember that God always answers but sometimes not in the way we want it to be. His answer will also always be one that will accomplish and produce fruit in order to glorify Him and to bring out what He wants to happen.
So, what if the answer you had been expecting is one that is unexpected. “Wait” is the most unexpected answer of all. With “yes” or “no” we get a definite answer but “wait” is a whole other matter. “Wait” simply means that – wait and we really don’t want to as we must have the answer now. With waiting, there is nothing definite, we feel are going nowhere and there is no certainty but is that entirely true?
What waiting means to God is very different to what it means to us. God uses the waiting period, to continue His work in us. To help us to grow and mature and become more of the person He wants us to be. By waiting, we learn to distinguish our earthly desires from our godly ones and sometimes we find out that the thing we were asking for isn’t the thing we really wanted or needed.
The next time you pray to God, don’t just expect the expected answer but expect the unexpected one. Whatever, the answer is you can rest assured in the knowledge that it will always be the one that God wants it to be.
Originally published January 2019