We all like happy endings—especially happy prayer endings. The widowed woman is burning her last piece of coal when someone comes through the storm with a load of coal and some groceries. George Mueller sits his orphans down to give thanks for a dinner when there is no food and food arrives before the prayer is over. I even have my own “happy ending” prayer stories—actually lots of them, and they are exciting and precious to me each time I retell them.
But what about the prayers of faith that don’t seem to have a happy ending? What about the times when we have needs, pray in faith, and the answer isn’t at all what we expected? What then?
Peter and I have just experienced a time like that. We prayed in faith, trusting God for the answer. But He didn’t give us “the” answer, He gave us His answer, and it wasn’t the happy ending we were hoping for.
Scripture gives us help for times like this. Isaiah reminds us that God’s ways aren’t our ways. That alone is a good reminder, but the encouragement comes when we are assured that God’s ways are higher or superior to ours. Psalm 18:30 adds more emphasis to that truth by stating that God’s ways are perfect—they can’t be improved on.
So when you don’t get a “happy ending” to your prayer of faith, remember God has given you a better ending—one that is not only superior to yours, but perfect. So isn’t that a happy ending after all?
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then why pray? Why ask..should our prayers simply be..your will be done unto me…and then trust Him for the grace and peace to go thru what He is requiring at this time?..Just wondering…..
“Then why bother to pray?” is a question we all ask at times. I’m not pretending to have all the answers, but here is where my soul rests. If this were a religion, then we would expect it to “work” a certain way, but this is a relationship, and prayer keeps us in relationship with God. Our best example is our children. We want them to come and share their hearts and ask for what they desire, but we also want them to trust our choices and our love. How often have we said “no” to a child because we had something better planned? Would we really want children that only walked around saying, “You know best. Your will be done”? God loves us enough to allow us the freedom to ask, and He asks us to love Him enough to trust Him with the answers.