God is wonderful, and being wonderful, He answers prayer in mighty ways. In one of my conversations with my father concerning God’s character, he told me that God likes to answer prayer in the unexpected ways. I’ve found this to be true. Often, we will pray, thinking we see the easy way God is going to answer a prayer. We connect the dots in our head and we may even tell God how He should answer the prayer. We forget that God sees what we do not. He sees the inconceivable number of connections between all facets of life and the needs of every heart. When God doesn’t answer our prayer as fast as we would like or in the way we expect, we become discouraged and sometimes stop praying concerning a specific request. Don’t give up.
We should faithfully bring a request before God and leave Him to figure out how to answer it. Romans 8:26 says, “…for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” Often, we don’t even know what to pray for or how to pray for it.
An old preacher shared the following testimony of how our mighty God can answer prayer. “There was a woman who used to attend a certain church in the north of England, but her husband never went with her. He was a drinking, swearing man, and she had much anguish of heart about him. She never ceased to pray, and yet she never saw any result. She went to the meeting house quite alone, with this exception, that a dog always went with her, and this faithful animal would curl himself up under the seat, and lie quiet during the service. When she was dead, her husband was still unsaved, but doggie went to the meeting-house. His master wondered whatever the faithful animal did at the service. Curiosity made him follow the good creature. The dog led him down the aisle to his dear old mistress’s seat. The man sat on that seat, and the dog curled himself up as usual. God guided the minister that day; the word came with power, and that man wept till he found the Saviour. Never give up your husbands, good women, for the Lord may even use a dog to bring them to Christ when you are dead and gone. Never give up praying, hoping, and expecting.”
(By Josh Wilcox)
