Answered Prayers
Author: Kay Davis
June 13, 2024
I read a devotional today, which brought to mind the thought of how God works in our lives in unexpected ways, just as Pastor Matt has spoken on recently.
The devotional was from Streams in the Desert and based on the scripture Romans 8:26, which says in part, "we know not what we pray as we ought. More completely, Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."
When in my life has God acted in an unexpected way in regard to answering a prayer of mine? If you know my husband, Ron and I for very long, you know that God has placed a passion for marriages in us both. This passion came about on my part, by God answering a prayer of mine, actually two prayers of mine. These prayers came about by what I believe were desires placed in my heart from God Himself.
The first one came from my reading from God's Word in 1 Corinthians 13, which is referenced often as the Love Chapter. It was verse 8 & 13 that I believe God planted that desire in my heart. Verse 8 states: “Love never ends. As for prophecies, they pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.” Verse 13 states: “so now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
When I read these verses at that time (1992) God placed a desire in my heart to seek love, God's kind of love which was illustrated in 1 Corinthians 13, also referred to as Agape love. The second prayer and desire of my heart came as a result of going through a Kay Arthur ladies bible study titled “Marriage Without Regrets”. My biggest takeaway (again, in 1992) from that study was that marriage, MY marriage is one of the greatest witnesses to the world, the unsaved world in particular, of the Lord and His church...the bride.
Little did I know that just a matter of a few months later, the Lord would be beginning to orchestrate those very desires...to love as the Lord loves us and to display that love through our marriage, in ways I would have never dreamed of or frankly, ever chosen.
I would like to share an excerpt from the devotional referenced which illustrates that time in our lives: Much that perplexes us in our Christian experience is but the answer to our prayers. We pray for patience, and our Father sends those who tax us to the utmost; for “tribulation worketh patience.” We pray for love, and God sends peculiar suffering and puts us with apparently unlovely people, and lets them say things which rasp the nerves and lacerate the heart; for love suffereth long and is kind, love is not impolite, love is not provoked. LOVE BEARETH ALL THINGS, believeth, hopeth, and endureth, love never faileth. We pray for likeness to Jesus, and the answer is, “I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” “Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong?” “Are ye able?”
The way to peace and victory is to accept every circumstance, every trial, straight from the hand of a loving Father; and to live up in the heavenly places, above the clouds, in the very presence of the Throne, and to look down from the Glory upon our environment as lovingly and divinely appointed. – Selected. Whoa! Heavy stuff. Just a matter of several months after God placed those desires in my heart, our marriage went through the roughest, hardest, and perplexingly at times, most precious in our marriage.
When this happens, when we are faced with circumstances that test our very belief in God's Word...“Did
He say?.” I can tell you, with complete confidence that YES, He said. Yes, He is faithful, Yes He loves us the way He desires we love Him and those around us...that includes our spouses. He.Is.Faithful. Our circumstances may make us question that, it may test our very belief in all things good. But, if we seek
Him and His Word and obey Him during those times, He will prove Himself worthy and we will always, always come out the better for it, no matter the outcome. Our good and His glory...always! Had Ron and I not gone through what we did in our marriage in 1992, we would not have learned the lessons God needed to teach us so that He could prepare us to minister to couples. He was preparing us, unexpectedly!
I believe He works unexpectedly, in part because we, as humans, cannot fathom the heart and mind of God completely. His ways, as Isaiah 55:8 states, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither your ways my ways, declares the LORD.” I can personally attest to that fact! How about you?
My prayer for us all is that we look for the unexpected, knowing that it may very well be the hand of God
at work in our lives...for our good and His glory!
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