How many times have you prayed and tried and prayed and tried, but no matter what you’ve done, God does not answer your prayer? If you’re like me in my relationship with God, there have been many many times of extreme begging and extreme fist shaking at Him because He won’t come through for me like He promised in the Bible. Whatever on Earth did He mean by “Ask and you shall be given”?
One thing I always overlook with that verse is that no where in it does God ever say just what we will be given. No where in there does He say I will be given what I’m asking for. He just says “You will be given”.
I have struggled with a difficult situation for two years and said many heartfelt prayers begging God to fix it. I had all but given up on the fact that He was ever going to answer that prayer. And now, where I am in my journey, I can look back on all those months of praying that prayer. I can see what an entirely different person I am today, than I was in the early days of praying that prayer. I now realize that if God had answered that prayer even last year, it would’ve been too soon for me. I was still in the middle of a horrible “sifting season” that God was putting me through. If He had answered my prayer while I was still bouncing around in the sifter with no clarity or understanding, it would’ve hurt me instead of helped me like I was so sure it would. It is only now that the clumps of all things that didn’t belong in my heart are “sifted” out, that I have the clarity to see that.
God wasn’t saying no to my petitions because he wasn’t answering me. He answered me by PROTECTING me from something I was asking for that He knew very well I wasn’t ready for, and would just hurt me further. “Ask and you shall receive”. I asked, and I received protection.
Keep praying that futile prayer. The answer may not be “no” as you would like to think. You may be receiving protection from a danger that you do not even know exists, should God allow you to go down the road you are asking access to.
And so, as another day goes by, the “sifting seasons”, as Beth Moore calls them, are necessary for us to grow a relationship with our Higher Power, and…I have written.
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