Waiting for an Answer

Sometimes we believe that our prayers have gone unanswered when all we really need to do is wait for God to move.

When I was a child and a teenager, I attended the Protestant Chapel on the Air Force base where my step-father was stationed. A number of chaplains served the congregation, so we never knew ahead of time who would be conducting the service on any given Sunday.  Some of the chaplains were fairly good preachers, but others made me wonder why they had ever chosen to go into the ministry.

Over the years I encountered a wide spectrum of chaplains representing every major Protestant denomination, but my favorite, by far, was an African American Baptist who absolutely believed what he preached. In fact, every Sunday morning I found myself hoping that he would be the one leading the service. One Sunday he told a story that has stayed with me for fifty-three years because it taught me the importance of waiting for God’s answer to my prayers.

When Chaplain Price was a little boy, he had wanted a bicycle more than anything, but his family was poor and could not afford to buy him one. He knew that the only way he was ever going to get a bicycle was for God to provide one for him, and he began to pray for a bicycle. He prayed fervently, but the years passed, and the bicycle never materialized.

Years later, when he was serving as a military chaplain, he arrived at an Air Force base where he was to begin serving. Since he needed transportation on base and did not yet have his car, he commented to one of the sergeants that he wished he had a bicycle. The sergeant then told Chaplain Price to come with him. He took him to a large warehouse and opened the door. To the chaplain’s amazement, he saw that the warehouse was filled with bicycles of every kind---beautiful shiny bicycles outfitted with all the bells and whistles.

“Take any one you want,” the sergeant said.

The chaplain was stunned. In relating this story he said that he knew at that moment that his prayers had been answered—not for one bicycle, but for a fleet of beautiful bicycles that fulfilled every bicycle fantasy that he had ever entertained.

The sergeant went on to tell him that the bicycles were his to use whenever he wished. All he needed to do was sign one out and keep it as long as he wished.

From that day forward Chaplain Price rode various bicycles around the military base daily, and they became his preferred method of transportation. He added that he never knew of anyone else who ever signed out a bicycle. But he did know that God had answered his prayers in a way much grander than he could ever have imagined.

I wonder how many of us pray fervently for something, and when we do not immediately see the answer to our prayers, we believe that God did not answer. I also wonder how many times, when we finally receive what we prayed for, we fail to recognize it as the answer to our prayers because we believe that too much time has passed. Part of living a successful Christian life is knowing that God always hears our prayers, but He answers those prayers in His time and in His way.

Men and women of faith have always had to wait for God to fulfill His promises: Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years for the son that God had promised them. Likewise, the nation of Israel waited for more than 400 years for the deliverer to lead them out of bondage in Egypt.  Hebrews 11 tells of the countless men and women of faith who believed God and eventually saw the answers to their prayers—although none of them received all that God had for them because He wanted them to look forward to the even better things that he had waiting for them in heaven.

If you have been praying for something for a long time but have not seen the answer to your prayers, do not become discouraged. Know that God hears and that He will answer at the perfect time and in the perfect way. And, in the meantime, keep praying.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother.   Her newest novel, The Warrior, is available on Kindle and in paperback.  For more information visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup