Everyday Prayers for PatienceEsimerkki

Making Room for God

One of the main reasons I love to pray the Word of God and encourage and teach others to do the same is because I believe God will always be true to it. There may not be many specific instructions for parents in the Bible, but there are plenty of promises to God’s children. One of those is that God’s Word will not return void but will do exactly what He purposes for it to do.

There’s confidence in that promise…and a bit of mystery. On the one hand, we can have the assurance that when God’s Word goes forth, it will accomplish His specific and purposeful plan. On the other hand, we have no control over what God’s plan actually is. My main takeaway, in the almost twenty years I’ve been praying God’s Word, is that I can have faith in God’s powerful promise without having to understand its purpose or His timetable in fulfilling it.

While the entire passage from 2 Peter 3 is speaking mainly about the day of the Lord, or when Jesus returns, I don’t think it’s wrong to apply it to other situations when we are waiting for the Lord to show up, or feeling like the Lord is silent or maybe even delayed.

Have you been praying for a child to come to Christ, with no direct answer in sight?

Do you have a prodigal child who has not looked back, despite your bleeding prayers?

Has sickness or injury entered your home and caused you to fall on your knees like never before?

Are you watching a child experience hurt while you are unable to kiss away the pain or offer assurance that it will be alright?

Sometimes it feels like God is delayed. Sometimes it feels like He’s being too quiet. However, this is only because we’re trying to understand our circumstances the way we can, within our own limits, and failing to recognize that God’s ways are altogether different from ours. God doesn’t delay as we might understand it. He’s just on an entirely different timetable that we can’t see.

Prayer: Father, thank You that I can trust Your timing. Help my family to trust it as well, especially when it feels like You’re being too quiet or that Your response is delayed. Broaden our minds and hearts to make room for Your plans, even if they aren’t what we want. In Jesus’s name, amen.