Unanswered Prayers...Thursday

8/20/15

There is a song that talks of this phenomenon thanking God for what He gather rather than what he had asked for. I think it was a country western song, but it was not lamenting as some of the country songs do. You know the type..."My baby left me, and the dog done died!" LOL!

The song to which I am referring is called "Unanswered Prayers" sung by Garth Brooks. In it he is with his wife and a hometown football game and they bumped into his old girlfriend. He had prayed to God for this girl to be his wife, but it didn't happen, and he was happily married to another woman. When he considered then and the woman he had prayed for and his own wife he began to thank God for unanswered prayers. He goes on to sing about how he thanks God for unanswered prayers. He sings that when we talk to the "man upstairs" remember that, even when God doesn't answer our prayers, it doesn't mean that He he does not care.

We all could list examples of things we hoped for and asked God for that never happened. Most of us have had a Garth Brooks type of experienced that, because of which, with 20/20 hindsight we know that we  ended up better than other possibilities would have turned out. I remember our church family praying for two men who had cancer. One survived the fight, while the other went home. A very special woman of God who was serving him with whole life has an asthma attack and suddenly passes away. There were lots of questions, because many people had been praying for this woman for a long time that her asthma would improve. So we all wonder and say, "Really, Lord?"

One thing we can always be certain of is that the Lord has our best needs in mind and will provide them for us. We never need to doubt His intentions...we only need to doubt our own understanding of what is best for us. We need to keep these scriptures in mind.

This plan of mine is not what you would work out,
neither are my thoughts the same as yours!
Isaiah 55:8

“I don’t think the way you think. The way you work 

isn’t the way I work.”God’s Decree. “For as the sky soars 

high above earth, so the way I work surpasses 

the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think. 

Just as rain and snow descend from the skies 

and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth, 

Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,

 producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, 

So will the words that come out of my mouth 

not come back empty-handed. They’ll do the work 

I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.

Isaiah 55:8-11

(MSG)

Seek and ask for what you want, but be willing to accept and rejoice in what the Lord prepares for and gives you.

Written by 

Corinne Mustafa