The waiting game....

Silence is golden, except when you are waiting for word on something.  Waiting can be painful, exciting, taxing, or, in the worst cases, dreadful, imagining all sorts of wild things and hoping they don't come true.

For most people, we turn to prayer when we want something big.  Then we wait, wondering how God will answer our prayer.  But, if you objectively scrutinize the real motive, we aren't actually waiting to see the answer.  Instead, we are waiting to see if he answers our want by granting us our desire.  Those are two very different things.

I have heard people say quite often that God sometimes answers with no, like there is a brick wall we run into, and that is that.  I used to sort of think that way, as well, but recently, I have begun to think differently.

Sometimes, when we are waiting, although the time seems long to us, the answer is not immediately obvious, and we think we have been told no.  But quite often, in looking back, the answer wasn't obvious at the time, but became apparent in retrospect.  There was a clear answer, in fact, and often quite quickly.  It just wasn't what we expected, so we don't recognize it as the answer at the time.

My daughter wanted to go to a particular college.  I didn't feel her reasons were all that sound, and although I liked the school in general, I was quite skeptical of her decision.  But I prayed and prayed about what to do, and God convicted my heart that this was the right place for her, even though I didn't see it at the time.  It was excruciating, wondering if I had made the right decision, and if she was where she needed to be.  But ultimately, it was the perfect place for her to be, not for any of the reasons I had imagined, but because she met her husband there, and he is the person God designed for her.  And he met her, the woman God designed for him.  I was worried about the small moments, while God had their whole life in mind.

God is eternal.  He is not constrained by our time frame and our limited mortal vision.  Sometimes, the answer he gives involves others, as well, so our answer is intertwined with theirs in a complicated tangle that we haven't yet unwoven.  His answers may be confusing, but ultimately, he knows our future, and he understands what is going to be best for us in the longer term, and answers with our overall best interests in mind.

Today, I am grateful for the waiting game of God's answer to prayer.  Although I don't always see the end point, he knows what I do not, and his plan always exceeds my imperfect vision.