Praying in Faith

Have you ever simply gone to God with a request in faith and waited in anticipation for His response? What did that look like? Were you tempted to take action while waiting?

Years ago we struggled with infertility after our first son was born. We asked the elders of our church to come pray with us. During that time of prayer the Lord impressed upon my heart Psalm 27:14, which reads, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”

His response to our prayer wasn’t ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but ‘wait.’

Well, I proved to be a very poor wait-er. Over the next seven years, I “waited” by going to several doctors and undergoing multiple infertility treatments, all to no avail. Finally, we decided to actually wait—stay still in anticipation.

Two weeks later, on my 33rd birthday, we found out I was pregnant. When that daughter was nine months old we were surprised by another pregnancy. And when that daughter was nine months old, I was pregnant with our youngest son.

So, in a little over three years we went from a family of three to a family of six. Funny thing is that if you had told me this is what God was planning for us, I don’t know if I would have believed it.

Not only was I bad at waiting, but I also failed in faith. When we prayed for God to expand our family, I actually had an answer in mind. I pictured God’s response looking a certain way. When that didn’t happen, I thought that maybe I had heard Him wrong and needed to take action. I didn’t believe in a God that was big enough to answer in a way that I couldn’t even imagine.

Recently, the elders of Faith Church have felt God calling us to pray specifically about something. Pastor Steve will be speaking more about that this Sunday. As I have been helping with preparing some of materials to go along with Steve’s sermon, I’ve been forced to wonder once again if I believe in a God that can answer prayers in surprising ways.

Has God ever answered your prayers in unexpected ways?