my God can set fire to water.

I don’t know about your experiences with God answering prayer, but when God answers my prayer, He usually doesn’t do it the way I think He should.  I say that in the most reverant way possible.  His answer is always better than whatever I think the answer should be, but usually that’s how He teaches me a thing or two. 

Lately I’ve gotten really good at knowing that God is a lot smarter than me, and His way is always best.  So whatever I ask for, I somewhat expect that He won’t give exactly what I am asking for, but I know He will give me something different that will end up being better.

Sometimes, but not always.

I mailed a package of letters from sponsors for kids to a Back2Back employee in Michigan back in January.  I can’t mail the letters to Mazatlan because of the unreliable postal service in Mexico, so this seemed like the best option to get them to the children.  Except when the postal service in the United States is unreliable too. 

The letters never arrived.  Let me rephrase that-- the letters disappeared without a trace.  I called the post office, tried tracking them down, and got no where.  I was so upset about losing them that I could barely talk about it.  For weeks I just accepted the fact that the children would never receive the letters their sponsors had written.  It broke my heart.  I knew the letters would mean so much to the children in Mazatlan—it was their first set of letters from sponsors since starting the Child Sponsorship Program there.  I’ve met these children, and I know how desperately they could use the encouragement.

Last week I had a chance to send another set of letters to the children in Mazatlan.  I decided the God of the universe knew where the lost package of letters were, and it was worth asking Him to get them back to me so I could send them down.  I began praying that they would show up.  At first, I quietly asked God to bring them back.  But then I felt prompted to tell the women in my office what I was asking of God.  It was almost laughable since it had been almost 2 months since I had seen them.  

There’s a story in the Bible about a prophet named Elijah who had a show down once with 450 prophets of Baal.  Essentially he told the prophets to call on their god to send down fire, and he would call on his God to send down fire, and they would see who’s God showed up.   The prophets of Baal danced around and shouted all day for Baal to send down fire, but no fire came.  Pressure was on, and Elijah NEEDED God to show up.  So do you know what he did?  Built an altar and POURED WATER ON IT.  He wanted to make sure there was no question that God Himself sent the fire.  Then he prayed.  

“Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench” (1 Kings 18:38).  Yep.

The God that set fire to wet wood and burned up water was the God that I was telling everyone in the office was going to bring the letters back to me by Friday, March 16 so that I could get them to Mazatlan in the next delivery.  

“Lord, you have until Friday!” I proclaimed aloud to the women around me.  We laughed a little, but I was serious.  “Lord, there is no reason why you shouldn’t answer this request,” I reasoned.

Friday morning came.  My coworker went to the post office, and came back holding the missing package.  They might as well have been signed and sealed by God Himself.

I will resist the temptation to explain how God doesn’t always answer prayers exactly how we want, and how we need to trust Him when He doesn’t.  Sometimes He DOES.  Sometimes He does exactly what we ask of Him.  Sometimes He waits until the very last moment to show up, just so we know that He is the one orchestrating things.  Sometimes He just likes to show off.  I like it when He does that.