ANSWERED PRAYERS

Psalms 119:170 Let my supplication come before thee: deliver me according to thy word.

There are times in life when we pray and yet our prayers seem to go unanswered. There are times when our cries seem to reach a deafened or out of reach Divine ear. There are also times when even after a long search, heavenly wisdom seems inexistent.

Could it be in those times that God does not hear our prayer? Is it plausible that He ignores our beggarly plea? Or could the treasury of heaven’s wisdom be empty?

I see a shepherd digging for water. He needs to satisfy the thirst of his family and of his flocks. He also needs to satisfy his own thirst. He starts digging, hoping and praying he is at the right place. All help in some way. Hope sings in the heart of everyone. An air of assurance fills the heart of the worker giving him strength. But the digging yields no water. The workers are spent, the foreman discouraged, the people and the flocks are desperate, and thirsty.

It is good to dig, to work hard and to labor in prayer. It is good to even remind God of the promises by which He bound Himself. But before digging in trying to solve our problems in our own strength; before wasting our precious energy, and disappoint the faith of all around us: we need to ask where to dig. We need to ask if we should even dig. Our heavenly Great Shepherd might tell us to hit a rock to get water. He might even tell us to even just speak to a Rock and lo, behold, waters of life will come gushing out to satisfy everyone.

Deliverance from God always comes, but it often does from outside the realm of our understanding, and from inside the realm of obedience in simple faith. This obedience makes us wise as serpents and harmless as doves. It leads our prayers to the nostrils of God, brings our petition closer to the Divine ear, and most of all, it put the riches of heaven’s treasury at our disposal.

James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.