The Power of a Patient Prayer…
I will begin by saying that
in the last twenty five years I have seen so many miracles. I have stood on the Word of God through many
trials and tribulations. I have seen God
move in subtle ways and I have seen him move as though a blazing wildfire.
Another thing that I had
come to understand was that God’s timetable was a lot different than mine. Patience had never come easy for me. Waiting for my prayer to be answered showed
me that I was going to learn patience.
Romans
12:12 reads: Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction,
faithful in prayer. (New
International Version) (NIV)
And I was determined to remain
faithful, especially where prayer was concerned. I especially did not want my prayers to turn
into something repetitious. I was going
to stand strong and not waver.
In this world we live in it
is easy to become a skeptic. Negativity
seems to be the norm. And it’s easy to
become as negative as this world is. The
harder you try to live your life right it sometimes feels as though you are
always swimming against the tide. These
are the times when you need to stay close to God, read the Word, and strengthen
your faith.
In John 14: 12-14 Jesus says: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith
in me will do what I have been doing. He
will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so
that the Son may bring glory to the Father.
You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (NIV)
I stood on this
promise. I believed that God was going
to answer my prayer; it was just a matter of when. I’d had ups and downs. Had to practice Tough Love. Which if you are a parent you know how tough
Tough Love can be. Through it all I
placed my petitions at the foot of the cross. I will admit that one of my
biggest problems was that I would lay it down before God and without thinking
about it I would take it back. I didn’t
mean to do it. It took some time for me
to realize that I could not fix this problem.
Only God could fix it. By picking
it back up I wasn’t allowing God to handle it.
After I accepted the fact that only He could do what I was asking I
started thanking God for my prayer being answered. I prayed that my household would be
saved. I believed God for this miracle. Now it was time for me to have patience. In Romans
10:36 The Amplified Bible reads: For you have need of steadfast patience and
endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and
thus receive and carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised.
So I continued to pray for
patience. This patience went on for
fifteen years. My husband and I
continually petitioned God’s throne. We
were standing steadfast and we were not wavering. And we weren’t the only ones praying. There were a lot of people praying. We put in a lot of prayer cards.
And through that I also
prayed that my joy would be full. I was
not giving up. There were days when I
would turn on the radio, STAR 99.1 when I was on my way to work and a song
would come on and I felt as though God was reaching out to me, assuring me that
He was working behind the scenes. My
resolve would then be strengthened. I
was standing on the Promises of God and I knew He was going to come
through. I was also standing on the
Word.
In Galatians 5:22-23 I read: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (NIV)
Standing on God’s promises
seems easier when everything is going great.
It’s when adversity strikes – when you really have to dig in your heels
and stand strong on those promises. It
was a long road. But when everything
came together it was worth it. It’s all
in God’s timing. And God’s timing is
always perfect.
