Thursday, March 6, 2014

Immediate Response Expected

I turned on the space heater dish to warm up the room as I was getting dressed this morning. I set it to high and wheeled off to let Quigley out. When I came back to the space heater a few minutes later, there was hardly any heat coming out of it. I was puzzled. I knew I'd set it to high. Why wasn't it heating up immediately?

A few minutes went by and the dish was putting out heat like there was no tomorrow. I just had to give it time to warm up and do its job.

It struck me that we treat our prayers to God in a similar fashion. We cry out to Him and pray for Him to do something and expect immediate responses. But just like the space heater, the response doesn't occur in our timetable, the response to our prayers occurs in His time.

Have you been asking God to do something and wondered why you haven't heard back immediately? Know that He has heard you but as the Word says "The effective, fervent prayers of a righteous man avails much." (James 5:16) This means we have to consistently pray for Him to meet our needs.

In other words, prayer with God is a consistent conversation that begins with your morning prayer time and lasts throughout the day. Don't believe me? Try it. Pick one thing that you really need God to answer in your life. Talk to Him about it... not just one time but every day and throughout the day whenever it comes to mind. 

I promise you, my friend, that God will respond... in His time.