When God answers prayer

Sometimes life is difficult. I know I have been struggling lately with wondering why God has seemingly been silent in the face of fervent prayer. I have been trying to find answers even when it seems like there were none. I recently revisited a book I read in college by Philip Yancey called Disappointment with God which asks three questions – Is God unfair? Is He silent? Is He hidden? Even though I’ve read the book before and I knew the answers, it was good to be encouraged and reminded. Right after finishing the book, I read a blog post by Walt Mueller entitled God Hit My "Pause" Button. In that post, he talks about the bike accident he was in a few weeks back, and how God has hit the pause button on his life for him to learn something. Its a good blog and you really should read it, especially if you are going through some trying times in your life.

One thing I loved about both the book and the blog post is the idea that God has stuff going on behind the scenes that we can’t see or understand. Walt wrote –

This morning, I read these words in Proverbs 16: 9 – "We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps." I’ve always believed this to be true. Now, I believe it to be true even more. Lisa and I have often reflected back over the course of our life together at how the script we had dreamed and written isn’t the script that God has chosen for us to play out in our lives. We thought our script was good. . . the best, in fact. It didn’t include any stress, pain, heartache, brokenness. It seemed perfect. To be honest, my script was all about me. But God in His mercy and grace has chosen to write out and implement a drama for my life that’s much, much better.

God has a script for our lives. As much as I wish I could read the script ahead of time, I can’t. And so I have to go on faith that God’s script is better than my own.

I love the part that Walt wrote when he said, “To be honest, my script was all about me…” Isn’t that how we all are? Something bad happens – a job loss or an injury – and we are quick to point our fingers at God and say, “WHY ME GOD!” Maybe we don’t go that route, but we fervently pray that God will intervene and put our script back the way we want Him to. When He doesn’t, we wonder why He is silent.

I am not one to minimize the junk people are going through. When bad things happen, they stink! Believe me, I know from very personal experience. It is ok to not like the bad stuff!

Maybe, though, our script isn’t all about us. Maybe our script is intertwined with the scripts of everyone else. I have learned that lesson this week. For the past 8 months, I have been praying and pleading with God to provide me with a place to serve as youth minister. Yet my prayers have seemingly fallen on deaf ears. In the meantime, I have been volunteering with a local inner city group that ministers to the young people there. I’ve not done much more than be a warm body and someone to love on these kids who have so much bad stuff happening in their lives. But this past week, I was asked by the person in charge for some advice, stuff he has been praying about for 3 years! Perhaps God put me in this place to be an answer to his prayers. That makes me reconsider lots of things in my life, and where have I been so busy looking out for good ole’ number 1 instead of looking for where God wants me to be an answer to someone’s prayers?

This does not give me a job. This doesn’t answer my prayer. But it does put it into a perspective that this is not all about me, and that God is working in this world and I have not read the end of the script yet. I can’t see how it all falls into place. So while I may still think my situation stinks, I can know that God has not abandoned me or forgotten about me. Instead, he has been using me to be an answer to a prayer.

How can you be an answer to a prayer? How is God working, in your good times and your bad, to do good for all those who love Him?