Three Answers

God answers prayer and sometimes not in the way you would think. At the beginning of this year, I was distraught. I am one of those people who look forward to the New Year as I see it as a time to evaluate, regroup and make plans. As the New Year approached, I was filled with dread and anxiety.

The dread and anxiety were caused by unfulfilled desires, financial uncertainty, and confusion about the future. If you have read my previous posts, you know that I have desired to get married for a very long time. I have cried about it, I have been bitter about it, I have prayed about it and still no response. I think it would have been easier if God had given me a plain “no” but I somehow feel that the lack of response is not a refusal. In addition to this unfulfilled desire, about 13 months ago, I was let go from my job. In the first few months, I looked for a job to no avail and I ended up crying out to the Lord and he answered my prayer by giving me this wonderful ministry called Potter’s Image. This ministry focuses on girls and young women and seeks to address their issues using the Word of God. I began the ministry last year and received a great response. However, this ministry, though a good one, does not satisfy my financial needs. So as the end of the year was fast approaching, the reality that I was without a source of income and husbandless was inescapable, causing me great distress.

As I jumped the New Year (direct translation from my mother tongue), I was confused, unable to make plans and feeling sad and lost. I was questioning God’s plan for my life and that left me with no desire to go to church, read the Bible or pray- a bad place to be.

Anyway, by the grace of God, I somehow started to pray and my prayer was sometimes as simple as “God help me.” As I continue to pray, I constantly ask Him to enable me to trust in Him. Once in a while, I still throw in the prayer for a husband and of course direction for Potter’s Image and opportunities for a source of income, but my heartfelt prayer is for God to enable me to trust in Him to lead me and guide me and provide.

As I have purposed to pray and asked my friends to do the same, I have received three clear answers which are:  to be patient, to trust and to obey. With each response, God has directed me to different scriptures from the Bible to encourage me as I learn how to be patient to trust and to obey.

Patience– As He tells me to be patient He has pointed me to the stories of Sarah who waited for 25 years for her promise of Isaac, Hannah who waited for her Samuel, Ruth who waited for her Boaz, David who waited at least 15 years to be King and Elizabeth who waited for her son John the Baptist. All these people have one thing in common – they waited for God to fulfill His promises to them and to give them their hearts desire.

Trust– As I learn to trust Him, I am learning not to look at my current circumstances but to trust in who God says He is – that is His character and His attributes. During this time, He has shown me through His word and through the people that I have mentioned above that He is faithful, He is a good good father, He is merciful, He is all, He is Sovereign over every single part of my life, He is trustworthy and His steadfast love endures forever. I urge you to read Psalm 89 and write down all His attributes and His character and I challenge you that as you pray about your current situation, think of who HE is and as you do that you will be amazed at how your situation will appear small as compared to this God. I am learning that instead of looking at my circumstances, I should focus on Him and as a result my current circumstances stop becoming my focus. Ultimately, when this happens, it frees me to serve Him and worship Him.

Obedience -As He calls me to obey, He reminds me to take Him at His Word and not to take matters into my own hands. As I continue to wait especially for a spouse, I have often found myself taking matters into my own hands. My rationale is that if God is not moving then I will make things happen for myself. Case in point- still at the beginning of the New Year, I decided that I will find myself a husband. I looked through my phone and started going through a process of elimination and narrowed down my options to two guys who I thought could be potential husbands. One met all my requirements you know financially stable, generous, loving, etc but he was not a believer and since that was the single most important item on my list, he was disqualified. The other guy, if nothing else, was a believer, or so I thought.  To cut the long story short, I started pursuing this guy but it became clear to me why God had said no to this guy in the first place. He was a guy who I had dated briefly a while ago. For starters, his testimony of salvation was not very clear – although he is a deacon at his church his fruit was not evident especially because he was not interested in safeguarding my purity. Secondly, I was doing much of the pursuing and yet I am a strong believer that a man has to pursue a woman. So my attempt to find myself a husband failed miserably and God continued to remind me of the story of Hagar and Ishmael. Sarah deciding to take matters into her hands caused great havoc in many peoples’ lives and some believe that the problems with our Arab brothers stem from this mistake. With an example like that in mind, I have decided to obey God and not only obey Him under duress, but obey Him because I believe that He knows what is best for me.

Brethren as I write this, I am enjoying my journey of learning how to be patient, how to trust God and how to be obey Him. But the biggest lesson I have learned through all of this is that my life is not my own. God has a plan and I am only a small cog in His wheel. When we look at the stories of the people I mentioned earlier, yes, God was merciful and He cared for their individual needs, but of greater importance is that He used these people to accomplish His sovereign plan which was to reconcile his chosen ones to Himself through Christ. Sarah gave birth to her son Isaac who was the fulfillment of the promise that God had made to Abraham. God had told him that because of his faith, he would be a father of many nations (those nations include you and I who have faith in Christ). Hannah gave birth to Samuel who was the priest that anointed the great King David – who was the forefather of the King of Kings who is Jesus our Lord. Ruth was the great-great-great-great-grandmother to our savior Jesus. Elizabeth was the mother of John the Baptist who came to bear witness that Jesus was the Messiah. As you can see all these people had a God-ordained story and through their stories and their lives, He accomplished His bigger plan. So likewise, I know that God has a bigger plan for my life and even though right now I do not know what it is I will continue to be patient, to trust Him and obey Him, and in the end, it will be for my good and most importantly for His glory.  This also means that even if he chooses not to answer my prayers, I still know that His plan for me is better than I could have imagined it for myself because, in the end, it is for His glory- Isaiah 48:9-11

Isaiah 48:9-11 For my own name’s sake I delay my wrath; for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you, so as not to destroy you completely. See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another. (NIV)