Answers to Prayers

Matthew 7:7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you."

When it comes to prayer, sometimes we get exactly what we ask for. I recently asked God for more patience. Do you want to know what happened? Trials, detours, and delays came my way. I asked Him for more intimacy. A deep aching loneliness came over me, like a longing for more. I asked for more faith, and suddenly a situation of such deep need, and no way to provide for myself. 

Then it hit me. As I prayed and asked God for more, He gave me exactly what I’d asked for. God knows exactly where to apply pressure to produce what we need. 

The trials in your life are not meant to harm you. They’re answers to prayer, meant to grow you in the areas that you’ve asked for. The point is not to stop asking God for what we need. but to trust that He’s a God who answers our prayers in wisdom and in love. 

We sometimes read a verse like Matthew 7:7 and make it all about the stuff we want in our lives. We make it about material gifts and dreams we long for and success we dream about. But what if the things we asked God for were things that really mattered? What if we asked for the fruit that only God can give us, and then actually expected him to answer? As you consider the day ahead, take time to pray, and ask God for the things that really matter. Now start believing that the answers are already on the way, sometimes in the ways you least expect them to come!

Questions: 

What are some of the things you’re praying for? Can you consider how God might be answering your prayers, even though you might not have seen it clearly before?