Have all your prayers been answered? Does your life work in perfect harmony for you? Do you find yourself so blessed with all good things that you can’t imagine what it’s like to feel anything else? We all go through great times like these in our lives, but then just as the good times shine beams of sunlight into our lives, those dark clouds are waiting and hovering in the distance. The death of someone we love, a struggle we may not have expected, news of a close friends illness, or some other unexpected dark storm that comes up. During those dark times, do you pray and ask God to help you, or do you thank him for your struggles? Do you pray during the times of plentiful reaping, where every tiny little seed you’ve planted begins to grow and produce something positive in your life? I try a balance between the two. I thank God for those blessings he has already done, I thank him for the storms, and then I ask for new favor or blessings in those I hold close in prayer.
If all our prayers were answered, and our lives were always blissful in harmony and peace, then why would we need to pray at all? Why would we even need to believe in something much more grand than we can ever imagine? If you’ve read the book, A Purpose Driven Life, then you can comprehend that’s exactly why our lives aren’t perfect, why we all struggle at times, why we grieve, and why this place we currently call home isn’t our final home. The book describes in detail this is God’s way of showing us we need him through prayers, and his way of trying to connect and have a relationship with each and everyone of us.
I like to think of unanswered prayers as a way of making us grow. If God answered all your prayers when you wanted them answered, then he would not stretch you to learn new things, he would not put forgiveness on your heart, and he would keep you content for dullness and empty things in life. He would be okay with you settling, and being self centered since you’d always get whatever you wanted.
A few years ago, my husband and I went down to Saylorville dam to watch the water come out of the spillway. As we were leaving, I noticed this large area of rocks stacked on top of each other. Keep in mind, it was a sea of rocks that one would think nothing would grow from. I spotted not only growth of one plant, but the type of growth that reveled burgundy color in the new leaves. This plant was a little over a foot tall, growing healthy and robust right out of the rocks! I told my husband I couldn’t believe it, and I think he thought I was nuts that I even cared about such an insignificant thing. The personal message I took away that day was that God is there with you…in times where you feel like your world may be filled with rocks and weeds, at times where you feel that everything you plant dies, or at times when you think he’s ignoring your prayers. He’s not. He’s waiting for you to grow, he’s waiting for you to forgive, he’s waiting for you to become who he made you to be, and he’s waiting for you to step up and out for him. He becomes that miracle plant that grows in the rocks for his people to believe in him, to trust him, and to know just as he parted the sea for Moses and his people, he is there holding you up even in all your unanswered prayers. Be patient, wait on him, and thank him for unanswered prayers.