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Cheryl
Barker
“As soon as you began to pray, an answer was
given . . .” - Daniel 9:23a
As we begin this new year, are any of you
still waiting for a blessing you hoped would come?
Are you waiting for an answer to prayer you
felt certain would have unfolded by now? If so, don’t feel alone. I’m waiting,
too.
It’s hard when God’s answers to our desires
and dreams are “no” or “wait.”
As we wait for the blessing to come, questions
can niggle at our minds.
Does God hear my prayers?
Why doesn’t He answer?
Doesn’t He even care about me?
Is He punishing me for something?
We may even feel like He’s forgotten us.
I won’t presume to explain why God’s answers
are what they are in your life or mine, but we’re all acquainted with the
growth that can take place in our characters as we learn to wait on Him and
trust Him in every circumstance.
However, knowing growth will come doesn’t
necessarily make the wait any easier, does it?
Maybe an example from Scripture about a
delayed answer could provide some encouragement or fresh insight as to why we
may have to wait at times.
In the tenth chapter of Daniel, we read that
God had given Daniel a revelation, but Daniel didn’t understand it.
He prayed and mourned for three weeks, asking
God to give him understanding of the vision.
At the end of the three weeks, Daniel had
another vision of a man, a messenger from God, who came to give him God’s
answer.
The man told Daniel, “Since the first
day . . . your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.” (Daniel 10:12)
He went on to tell him that a demon had
resisted him for twenty-one days.
One of the chief angels came to help him,
though, and the man was now there to give Daniel the understanding he sought
from God.
From this passage we see that sometimes delays
to our prayers happen because of struggles and battles going on in the
spiritual realm.
This may not be the reason for your current
season of waiting on God, but it could be a possibility.
Whatever the reason you find yourself in God’s
waiting room, take heart.
He hasn’t forgotten you. He hears you. And the
answer — the blessing — is on the way.
Meet Cheryl
Faith. Family. Friends.
Serving God. All of these things are important to me. Being a writer is one of
the ways I live out my faith and serve the One who first loved me. My prayer is
that you will be refreshed as you join me on my journey.
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