Untangling

Sometimes, you pray…
Really hard….
Your eyes squint….your  hands reaching up to God…
And then, magically….as if out of some wonderful fairy tale….

your prayers are rejected.

The cat dies. The keys are never found. The boy gets more sick. The pretty girl turns you down.

You question this God. You feel unloved, unheard. You feel praying was pointless. Silly. You feel foolish. You loose hope in the power of prayer.

You’ve always heard everything happens for a reason. It sounds pretty and all. But do you really think it applies to your life?

Do you actually, really believe that your life has a plan? Do you literally believe in prayer?

God tells us we should. Even if the prayers do not seem to be answered, He wants us to pray and wait.

We must trust that God knows what is going on.

“These things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.”  Habakkuk 2:3

You could pray for someone to like you.

That prayer might not be answered.

Because God had a better someone for you.

When our prayers are not answered, it is not because we did not pray hard enough necessarily. He does tell us to keep knocking at the door, to keep pestering Him. But God has something else in mind that will bring him glory.

Sometimes you pray, and your prayers are answered instantly.

You find the keys. You run into someone you’ve been longing to see.

God does these little perfect ‘coincidences’ to remind us of his intervention and power, his involvement in our lives.

God wants us to pray so that when the prayers are answered, His majesty will be seen.

We will rejoice because we know that He is there.

It’s true that God knows your heart and knows what you are going to speak before you even pray for the request.

But He still wants us to talk to Him, share the troubles with Him.

So try praying.

You might just find yourself addicted to talking to a God that loves you and is interested in everything about your life.