When Answers to Prayer are Delayed

A friend tells me, “For eight years, I’ve been praying that my son John, now married with three children, will become God’s man. I know that what I am asking is His will and John’s three children need a Christian father. So why such a long delayed answer to prayer?”
Another friend writes me, “Ted’s affair with that ‘other woman’ still goes on. I love my husband and this is devastating our teenage children. I’ve prayed every way I know to pray. My spiritual skies are leaden. God doesn’t seem to hear me. Help!”
Is there in your life a cherished heart’s desire taken to God over and over in prayer, yet still unfulfilled? Then link hands with my two friends, and with the rest of us, and with all prayer warriors across the centuries! No wonder Jesus had so much to say about persistence in praying, along with His clear teaching that sometimes we will have to wait for God to move… Thus the requirement of patience on our side (Matthew 7:7-11; Luke 11:5-8; Matthew 15:22-28).
Jesus’ actions were always consistent with His teaching. In the miracle where He raised his friend, Lazarus, from the dead, Jesus acted out His teaching on the necessity of our persistence in prayer and the patience needed in a situation where the answer was so slow as to seem even too late.
The drama of this occurs in the eleventh chapter of John. The first few verses set the scene: Lazarus’ home in the village of Bethany, less than two miles from Jerusalem. It was the Master’s favorite retreat spot where He could relax with His friends Martha, Mary and Lazarus. These people were dear to Him. The sisters had sent an urgent message to the Master: “Lord, he whom you love is desperately ill. Please come quickly.”
One morning in re-reading this story, the transition word between verses 5 and 6 was not only underscored, but leapt off the page:
Jesus loved this family so much, “Therefore, even when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He still delayed two days longer in the same place where He was.” (Amplified Bible)
And Lazarus died!
Verse 5: He loved this little family especially.
Verse 6: Therefore, He delayed in going to them in their distress.
How odd! Why?
Martha and Mary did not understand either. Separately, each sister verbalized the same thought, “Lord, if You had been here, our brother would not have died. You could have prevented it.”
Distressed by their grief to the point of tears (verse 35), Jesus gave two reasons for His deliberate delay: first, this experience was going to increase their faith (i.e., their ability to trust Him in the midst of seemingly impossible circumstances); and second, they were to have an even greater first hand demonstration of the glory of God (verses 15 and 40).
In reading again the Lazarus story, the Spirit would give you the same message that He gave to me: Jesus loves you so much. You are His special friend. Therefore He delays. The “therefore” has wrapped in it the limitless love of God, with Jesus experiencing to the full, along with us, our concern, agony of spirit, and sorrow.
Meanwhile, where do we get the needed patience? When our situation shows no change or even grows worse (as in the Lazarus account), how do we hang onto the faith that God’s love is working out our problems?
Recently Marge, a dear friend of mine, shared an experience where the Lord spoke to her directly about the “how.” She and her husband had just learned that he had Parkinson’s disease. It was the sort of dreaded disease which Marge had always especially feared.
The entire family gathered, anointed their father and husband with oil, and asked the Lord for His healing, then made a deliberate act of turning the situation over to Him.
Marge’s heart questioned, “Until such a time as our family sees this prayer answered, how can I keep enough peace of mind not to let fear and worry impede or stop my daily work?
God answered her question directly in an experience Marge had aboard a plane bound for Cleveland, waiting for takeoff.
As she settled into her seat, Marge noticed a strange phenomenon. On one side of the airplane, a sunset suffused the entire sky with gorgeous color. But out of the window next to her seat, all Marge could see was the sky, dark and threatening, with no sign of the sunset.
The plane’s engines began to roar and a closed-in feeling came over Marge. Long since, she had learned at such moments to be still and listen within. Then the gentle voice spoke, “You have noticed the windows,” He said even in the roar and thrust of takeoff. “For awhile now, your life will contain some beautiful, happy times, but also some dark shadows.”
“Here’s a lesson I want to teach you, to save you from much heartache and to allow you to abide in Me with continual peace and joy. You see, it doesn’t matter which window you look through. This plane is still going to Cleveland.”
“So it is in your life. You have a choice. You can dwell on the gloomy picture, or you can focus on the bright things in your life and leave the dark, ominous situations to Me. I alone can handle the dark ones anyway. The final destination is not influenced by what you see or feel along the way.”
“Learn this, act on it, and you will be released, able to experience the peace that passes understanding and even My joy.”
Marge’s sharing is helping me to handle my own “meanwhiles.” No one of us finds it easy to put our problem into His hands that completely. But only in that way does our trust in Him grow. You and I will yet have our own demonstration of the glory of God and we will be thankful in the meanwhile, for His assurance when the skies are darkest.