Thursday, February 26, 2015

Answered Prayer: It's in There Somewhere

Have you ever been at the grocery store and found that something you really needed was out of stock? You were already tired and didn't want to have to drive to another store. So, what did you do? You asked the stock boy if there was more in the back. You believed there was a chance that what you needed was in that store somewhere.

That's what the Syrophonecian woman did in today's scripture.

I LOVE the Syrophonecian woman! She had a very real need,  and she came to Jesus to get that need met. Jesus gave her a holy blowing off. He told her that her need was not on His agenda at that time. It wasn't that He didn't care, it was just that His energies had been reserved for others.

What would you have done in her shoes? Would you have sighed, hung your head and reasoned that the answer you wanted must not be God's will? Sometimes we use that as an excuse to give up. Persevering in prayer is hard, isn't it? Praying for rain without seeing a cloud in the sky feels like a waste of time.

Oh, but you don't know what God's got in the back!

Don't make the mistake of reading God's delay as if it was a no. Just as trials are designed to build character in you, so  silence from heaven is designed to get a rise out of you. Will that rise be a wailing whine, or will it be a holy boldness that says there's no way you're letting go until He blesses you?

Our Syrophonecian sister chose the latter. She agreed she was not on Jesus's original printout, but she knew He could still pencil her into the margin.  That's not arrogance, folks, that's faith!

 You don't let an empty grocery shelf be the final word. Don't let an unanswered prayer be the final answer either. Don't be so quick to give up. Keep searching, keep asking, keep praying. When God denies your request outright, He replaces it with something better. Either way, His "yes" is in there somewhere.

Talk to me: Your answer hasn't come yet. Now what  are you gonna do about it?

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