Nancy Hughes: Praising as I wait

“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)

Have you ever gotten one of “those” Christmas letters? You know the ones I’m talking about. You read that Johnny has made all A’s from kindergarten through high school – without taking one book home - and has lettered in football, basketball, track, and golf. 

 Sally is first in her graduating class at Harvard and has the awful task of deciding which six-figure job offer to accept. Mom and Dad moved from a 3,000 to a 5,000-square-foot home because they needed more room. And a movie producer accidentally bumped into them on the street and wants to make a film about their lives.

In all fairness, I haven’t gotten a Christmas letter quite like that. (Sally actually graduated from Yale.) And I have some bragging rights, too. I won a plastic dog bowl in a dog food contest when I was in middle school. Unfortunately, my dog ate the bowl. I hate to admit this but what used to bother me more than anything were not the people and the triumphs they shared in a Christmas letter.

What I struggled with were the praises that my Christian friends shared. Praises like “I prayed for a dear neighbor for a week and then he repented and is living for the Lord.” (I have prayed for people I care about for 20 years and they refuse to consider Jesus.) Or “We had no money for food and prayed about it and when we came home, there were bags of groceries on our doorstep.” (We prayed about no food on our table and ended up with peanut butter sandwiches and carrot sticks for two weeks.)

Please understand. I am excited for my friends and I praise God for the answers to prayer that they have received. It is just that, every so often, I long to be able to share a prayer answered in the same way they have experienced. But with that longing comes a warning.

If we are not on guard, the enemy will creep into our hearts, smothering us with envy and resentment as he whispers “Maybe you aren’t spiritual enough or maybe you don’t have enough faith.” and we will begin to doubt our Father’s plan for our lives and question whether He really does care about all of us when we call on Him with our prayer requests. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In Isaiah 55:8-9, God clearly tells us that we do not know His thoughts or ways; it is not for us to judge why some prayers are answered more quickly than others. We see everything around us from the perspective of a human, rather than the Creator of the Universe who loves us totally and completely sees and knows everything. Everything.

 

Because my prayers are not always answered immediately in my timing, I have learned to dig deeper into God’s Word as I wait. I have learned patience and complete reliance on Him. I have learned to trust Him to keep His Word to me and I have also learned that I can approach Him with confidence as I ask Him to help me with my every need.

Winning a dog food contest isn’t worthy of praise in a Christmas letter. But I will praise the Lord with all my heart for the answered prayers of my friends and I will trust Him to answer my prayers, too - in His time.

Father, thank you for answered prayer. Please help me to remember you will answer my requests in your perfect timing. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

R.A.P. it up . . .

Reflect

Have you ever felt like everybody else’s prayers were being answered immediately but your prayers were not?

Were you happy for those people or did you feel a bit of envy? Explain.

Apply

Keep a journal with each prayer request and the date you began praying for that person or situation. Praise the Lord for His answers in His time.

Look up Scriptures of encouragement to write down beside each request.

Power

Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV) “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”

Job 37:5 (NIV) “God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding.”

Hebrews 4:16 (NIV) “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

(For more of Nancy Hughes' writing, check out her blog, Encouragement from the War Room.)