You tried. You did everything you could possibly do. You even went above and beyond in some areas, killing yourself day in and day out. Most importantly, you prayed.
However this wasn’t just that average prayer before you say before grace. You weren’t just bowing your head before you went to bed. You talked to God, as though he were right there with you, every morning and every night. Heck, you even found yourself just calling out to him in the middle of the day, with no special reason other than to just let him know that your faith in him was as the young generation says today, “100."
You were sure that everything was going to be alright, because God doesn’t see the righteous forsaken. Then you received your test back, and that almighty A you thought you had so easily attained was actually a D. You were beyond sure that the next call from that big time company with the sweet post-grad entry level job you’d been pining for was yours for the taking, but when they called it was only to tell you that they had already given the job to someone else. How? You did everything you were supposed to, and more importantly, you had God in your corner. Sometimes however, being straight with the Lord doesn’t mean it’s going to happen right away.
As a Christian it’s easy to proclaim your faith to the public. Rather it be via social media, or with your own physical voice, professing to believe in God and what he is capable of isn’t as hard as many would think, especially when everything is going right. You can feel him working in your life, setting the pieces up perfectly, and then when you execute, it feels great to just let out sigh of relief and say “Oh thank God” or “God is so good”. But what about those times when you’ve prayed into the wee hours of the morning, only to come up short in whatever you may be dealing with? What do you do when God doesn’t give you the result you want, or did you just assume that just because you prayed and prayed and prayed some more that everything would work in your favor?
That’s when you just accept it for what it is, keep pushing, and keep praying.
As Christian, it’s important to understand that God isn’t always going to answer your prayer, simply because that’s not what he had in store for you. You can plead and pray and call out until you can’t anymore, but if God didn’t have that designed for you, he’s not going to give it to you.
Just because he doesn’t give it to you however, doesn’t mean he’s forsaken you. This is where a lot of Christians, young and old, begin to break down. They feel as though there must be something wrong with the wiring in heaven because their prayer wasn’t answered. “I don’t understand, I did everything I was supposed to. Why didn’t it work out?” To be “100” (kids these days), God doesn’t have to answer any of our prayers. He’s God. The Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Do you really think that he’s up there just waiting by a phone for you to call in and ask for a favor? It doesn’t work like that. If you’ve ever flipped open the New Testament, you’ll remember a rather profound account, where God sent His son down here to pay the ultimate price for us.
Therefore everything he does for us is out of love.
With that being said, when He chooses not to answer a particular prayer, it’s not because He doesn’t care about us or isn’t listening, but because he’s protecting us from something that we probably can’t see for ourselves. Him not choosing honor a request is not out of spite, but because he sees us, and understands at that particular time, we may not be ready for that blessing, and wishes to only prepare us for an even greater blessing through lessons of patience. So when you ask for something, and it’s not given to you, don’t get discouraged. When you pray for that A, and you get a C, don’t trip. You didn’t the get the job you wanted. Don’t sweat it, because He’s there, believe me He’s there, and He hears you. Perhaps He’s just waiting on you to hear him.
