You’re Halfway There
I have had many “opportunities” to pray for personal needs as well as the needs of others. What a personal triumph I felt, when the prayers were answered – maybe not in the way I suspected, but God’s way.
Sometimes those prayers aren’t immediate. They may go on for years. But it is not my responsibility to tell God when and how to answer the prayers. My responsibility is to pray and believe. God’s timing is perfect. And His timing may look like this after we’ve prayed, “Not right now, I have a plan; or, I have something better in mind.” He is God and His ways are higher than our ways.
The answers to our prayers may take a minute, a week, month or even years. If we trust in our Sovereign God, and His perfect timing, then our answers will come at His appointed time.
Even with our good prayer intentions and hopes for a quick answer, we just might have to keep praying and believing and waiting. We wouldn’t like it if someone came up to us and said: “You’re not even halfway to the Lord answering your prayer.”
And in the same light, I wonder about the woman with the issue of blood in the Bible, Luke 8:43-48. For over 12 years she suffered. I have often wondered about the sixth year of this woman’s terrible suffering. I wonder what she would have thought had she known she was only halfway to healing.
Then I think of the day before she was to meet Jesus. I imagine what it would have been like for someone to go to this woman and say, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day God will answer your prayer.” She was completely unaware that there was only one day left until she received an answer.
Maybe today you’re only halfway there. Maybe there are only six months left. Maybe your answer will come tomorrow.
Whatever God’s timing may be, with her unshakeable faith bursting in her soul, I imagine the hemorrhaging woman telling anyone who’s ever hoped and prayed for years and years, “It could be tomorrow. Do not give up. Do not ever give up on God.”
And, to you and me, I say: “Maybe you’re halfway there. Or, maybe, it’s tomorrow! Never give up on God!”
Saint Augustine wrote: “Patience is the companion of wisdom.” Let’s pray for both today!