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.
