What do you do when you pray and don’t get an answer? What do you do when you get worked up rebuking sickness and disease, and you didn’t even notice it isn’t the devil attacking you, it’s God’s will for your life? What do you do when you pray for a husband or wife, but God delays them because He wants you focused on Him? Please stay with me, I’m sure some people are looking at my post with a mean look already… I just want us to reflect on God’s Word for a second, has anyone in the bible ever lived without an obstacle? Once we decide to live for Jesus, we have to know that God will allow us to go through persecution and we will have some problems.
Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. (2 Timothy 3:12)
Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. (Psalms 34:19)
I wonder where we get our false interpretations of the Bible from. God loves us so much that He decided to die for us, but that doesn’t mean life will always be the way we want it. We have become so greedy seeking more money, more blessings, more, more, more.. It’s kind of sad because some of us don’t know that we are blessed to be a blessing, not to feed our greed. I wonder if anyone knows that the prayer, “God, please use me for your glory” does not only mean I will be a famous singer, preacher, minister, evangelist/missionary. It also means “God I will suffer for you to be glorified”, “Jesus I will die preaching your name”, or “God if you take me through a season of lack to teach me only You can satisfy and provide, I will not complain and I will trust You”. Be careful what you pray for, Christianity is a radical thing and you have to be serious if you’re for Jesus.
And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. (Matthew 8:19-20)
What I’ve realized is that everyone wants God to bless them, but no one wants to go through a season of barreness. We want to experience sunshine and rainbows, and never see storms. We want to stay on the mountain top and not see the valley. We want to live in luxury and not have to wear the same clothing everyday. I’ve noticed that God didn’t call us to a state of comfort, relaxation and complacency in this present world. Don’t get me wrong, God’s will isn’t for you to have nothing and live a “bad” life, but if you look all through the bible you’ll see many have struggled before they were blessed: Jesus wasn’t glorified until He was crucified, Paul suffered but preached Christ with joy and Job lost almost everything he loved and owned and it was God who put him in that situation.
God closes doors!
Process that for a second…. The bible says God made Hannah barren (1 Samuel 1:5). We must ask God for wisdom instead of for deliverance, because God sometimes is preparing us for great blessings. I pray that this post encourages you to keep praying like Hannah. She didn’t give up! She was mocked and ridiculed for something she could not change! God closed her womb and she prayed and prayed, the priest didn’t even understand her pain and thought she was drunk. People won’t understand your process, but be patient and God will give you the promise. So if you want God to give you Samuel, be prepared to go through a process. Your Samuel may be a literal child, healing, a new jobs etc., but whatever it may be, be patient for it. Your problems are temporary, God is eternal. He will come through. Some of us only want things to boast or because others had it (James 4:3). God wasn’t going to give her a child just to be equal to Peninnah, but when she said she will offer Samuel back to God, He gave her the child. God blesses us when we have the right motives.
And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice. If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:12-14)
– Tovares Grey
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