Another Thought on Unanswered Prayer

In June I wrote a post involving Steinbeck and my dad called "Unanswered" Prayer in which I shared that maybe, sometimes, when we feel like God isn't answering our prayers, it is because the answer involves so many people and/or situations that aren't yet in place in our lives that we might not even recognize His answer as from Him if He told us what we wanted to know. Last night we had a young man from our youth group over for dinner to talk with him and spend some time together and we got talking about the future. He has a tremendous heart for God's will in His life, but experiences the uncertainty of not knowing what that is (something we all, often, experience, I would imagine). Mary Ann shared a thought with him that I believe is another reason God may not always share with us the information about the future we are requesting (seemingly not answering our prayer). She reminded him of Abraham and Sarah and the mess that came out of God telling them their future . . . and then them trying to "help God out" and make that future happen (the birth of a baby to them being the situation I am talking about). We have the whole situation with Hagar and the two sons when there was only supposed to be one and all the problems today that spring back to that moment. So, maybe, sometimes God doesn't give us an answer to a request for His will or plan for the future because He knows that we'll try and "help" it happen instead of letting Him bring it about in His timing through our surrender to His leading . . . and rather than help, we'll just mess it up. Just a thought, and one I felt was a good one. Interestingly, it was this same Abraham who earlier in his life left his homeland at God's command and traveled, not knowing where he was going, until God said stop. He is a man who should have been familiar with God leading every moment and orchestrating the timing of everything. I wonder . . . how many times do we learn a lesson and then forget it or blow it off?

God bless you all, and thanks for sharing in my life and this little blog world. We have a truly mighty and wonderful God!
Erick