She prayed. She prayed fervently. And she was sure that God would abundantly provide in His precious and unexpected ways. She was so excited. She trusted Him for His answer.
And God did provide in an unexpected way. But not as she anticipated.
She had already prepared for what she thought would happen. But instead of joy, she was left with a cavernous hole in her heart and what appeared as a train wreck. She was devastated.
But I trusted You, O God.
And in her pain, she just stopped praying altogether, resulting in months of silence. Why bother?
Yesterday, she shared a monumental situation about her young daughter, resounding the cry and fear of every parent in a myriad of impossible situations. What in the world can I do about this?
Pray, I said. Pray a lot.
And in that moment, my words still hanging in the air, I could see it on her face, as it dawned on her, I can’t do this without God.
Perhaps in that other situation, her disappointment was really an appointment to prepare her for this difficulty – to trust God on an even deeper level. She trusted God before. Now she needed to trust Him radically more. Not just for answers, but seeking Him.
God provides in ways we cannot possibly understand. He withholds for reasons we cannot comprehend. He unfolds in ways beyond our vision. While we cannot know why, we can know there is always a why. God has incredible purposes for it. He always responds when we cry out to Him. But not always in what we can see. Not always defined by our expectations or desires or timing. And oftentimes, because we are the ones not ready for it yet.
His faithfulness is deeper than our myopic eyesight, His fulfillment farther than our imagination, and His fruitfulness always beyond our pay grade. We look for a tiny solitary seed sprouting. And all the while, God plants a forest of sequoias. God redeems, even the pain.
God knows what we need. Sometimes we don’t. But what we can know is this:
The steadfast love of God endures all the day.
Psalm 52. 1
And His love does not depend on favorable circumstances, or getting exactly what we pray for, and is seamlessly woven even in hardship, even in what we are not able to see,
But we can trust Him. Just because it is hard does not mean that God is not in it.
He weeps with us in our pain as One who knows suffering far more than we. God is not “teaching us” anything, but drawing us incredibly closer to Him. So much more hangs on this than a singular answer, but resounds to a thousand generations in a million diverse ways, encompassing the earth and eternity.
Nothing in His economy is subject to random chance. I cannot know what is up His sleeve, but I can know Him.
For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You. 2 Chronicles 20. 12
This barrage of difficulties does not mean spiritual warfare against us, a hail of bullets, and impossibly surrounded by foes. The adversary tries to confuse us and seal our defeat.
But instead this calls for spiritual warfare.
And that would be prayer.
We cannot know God’s mind nor purposes in what is ahead of us, even in what is right in front of us. But this too is sacred ground.
Many things we cannot do, or change, or control. But we can pray. We can pray all we want.
And God takes it from there.
It is not that God disappoints, nor that our prayers are ineffective, but a far grander narrative is unfolding. And we are part of it, even in what does not appear to fit. Of that we can be assured. On God we can stake our lives. And our prayers. There is always grace in what we do not yet know and far more at stake than we can imagine. May we treasure Jesus more no matter the outcome.
Someday on the other side, we will know and gasp, “So that’s why it happened like that!” And we will realize God’s eternal ramifications even in what we consider a disappointment, failure, or “not working out.”
God responds all along – past, present and future tense. What may appear as His absence is only His boundless Presence beckoning us deeper still.
All we have to do is pray.
Just try.
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