“This is the confidence we have in approaching God; that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us-whatever we ask-we know that we have what we asked of Him.” 1 John 5:14-15
When we pray, we don’t demand what we want. We ask God for answers that are in line with what He wants for us. He listens and we wait for His answer.
When God answers our prayers, He is answering from His perspective. He sees the whole picture - not just the little bit that we see. Perspective changes everything. His perspective is always more than we can see. Because of that, the answers we receive are not always what we were expecting. Sometimes we have a romantic, fanciful expectation of an answer to prayer. We are not prepared for the actual answer we receive. The answers sometimes look more like disappointment, inconvenience or conflict. The answer causes us to have deep emotions and to struggle with His answer.
If you pray and ask God to help you love and bless a neighbor, do you expect someone else to be the answer? You may be the answer. The answer you received propels you to give that neighbor attention and serve them. If your prayer is to grow in faith and closer to God, the answer you receive might be a situation where you end up with a broken heart. That’s okay; it’s an opportunity to grow in faith and grow closer to God. “God is near to the brokenhearted.”(Psalm 34:18). You received your answer but not the one you expected. You received the correct answer though-from God’s perspective.
If we ask God to increase our faith, what did we expect? The quick, easy answer would have been for Him to “perform” some supernatural miracle that we can see. That would increase my faith! At times, He puts us in situations that are difficult but He doesn’t “perform” that miracle. We can’t handle that answer but it pushes us to trust Him, His Word and His promises. That, in turn, grows our faith. We will not always have answers from Him that are easy, comfortable and good but we do get answers.
Answers can look like some thing else but it’s really the answer to our prayer. Try to understand the answer is coming from His unlimited perspective. Our perspective of what the answer should look like, as humans, is pretty much what we can see right in front of us. God sees the whole picture. he sees what’s on the inside, or below the surface, and sees the beauty underneath our current limited visibility. He is not limited in His perspective. Sometimes you have to let go of the answer you wanted and find the joy in the answer you received.
Are you missing an answer to prayer because you haven’t considered any other possible answer than the one you expect? Are you blind to His answer because it’s different from the one you expected?