Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Unanswered Prayers



The Word
1 Samuel 16
Samuel was sent by God to find the anointed king of Israel. How would he know who is was? God would tell him when he found him. For those of us who don't hear God speaking in full and detailed sentences, I interpret this to mean he would "just know". He went through each brother and knew it wasn't on of them. He couldn't say why, he just knew it wasn't. And when he was through with the oldest brothers he didn't go back through them and think, "maybe I missed it. Maybe I didn't hear God right. Was I paying attention?" he knew he didn't hear God say "this is the one" so he knew there must be more to the story. He didn't jump to conclusions and doubt that the Lord had told him to go anoint the son of Jesse to be king. Then when David came to him, Samuel knew; this is the one he came for.

The Circumstance and Application
I asked God to name our child. When I was pregnant, we went through book after book and never felt the Lord say "that's your child's name". Until I saw it. Even though we never saw it on an ultrasound, at that moment I knew that I knew that we were having a son and his name was Paxton. And sure enough, the baby was born a boy and he is definitely Paxton.

I pray the same thing about buying a house. We keep looking at houses, and some are great; we have even made a few offers because they felt like they could be "it". I know that God will provide us our house and it wont have to be too complicated. I keep looking back at other houses thinking, "maybe we missed it". "Maybe we didn't hear God." But, like Samuel, I need to not doubt. When it's time it's time, and and it's all about God's timing. Things don't happen in my timing, and when I try to make them happen in my timing it never works out the way I thought it would. God has bigger plans in mind. Sure, any of these houses will do, but the things He is teaching me through this home buying process cannot be rushed and could not have been learned if we would have bought the first house we saw.

In conclusion, as the wise Garth Brooks says: Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.





1 comment:

  1. The decisions in my life that I totally turned over to God were the best I ever made. They never took any energy. All the pieces fit together. I slept well. I never had any doubt. Proof that we need God every hour, every minute, is the fact that we continually need to tell ourselves to LET GO and LET GOD. Especially in the moments that we are most rushed. Thank you for this blog.

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