Answered Prayer

A man, on bended knee, pleaded his desperate financial situation before God asking to win the lottery. His cries were deep, emotions ran wild and the tears were real, but come the next day nothing ... he did not win. So now more desperate, he went back to God asking to win the lottery. His financial angst this time was deeper and his plea was more emotional, but come the next day still nothing ... he did not win. And, so, the third time he took his horrible situation before God and in mid-prayer God spoke, “Son, work with me here, at least buy a ticket!”

And so it goes for most of us … through prayer and meditation we lay before the Almighty our life and its needs – emotional, mental and physical … and then sit back and wait for THE answer, only to be disappointed that no answer is forth coming. We fail to understand that after we pray we must get to work. At least 50%, if not 90%, of any solution to our emotional, mental and physical state is found in the sweat equity that comes from us.

We teach this to our children, don’t we? They come to us with their requests and in helping them we enlist them in finding the solution (or at least we should enlist them instead of doing it for them). Anything that requires something from us is more appreciated than something that is simply handed to us. If it comes too easily it can be discarded without much thought, but if we have to work at it, struggle for it, make plans to achieve it and wait for its coming then when it arrives we can celebrate and feel satisfied … a deep, long lasting satisfaction … it is the “at least buy a ticket” syndrome or as I wrote last Sunday about Miss Hattie getting to church through all kinds of weather, “Getting there is half the joy.”

If we expect God to do everything for us then we just might find ourselves still wandering in the desert years later without ever experiencing the joy of coming into the Promised Land.

Quote for today:
Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say ungranted;
Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done;
The work began when first your prayer was uttered,
And God will finish what He has begun.
Though years have passed since then, do not despair;
His glory you shall see, sometime, somewhere.
Ophelia Adams.