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Sometimes we can pray for something and perhaps not see it manifest as we would like. This is probably one of the biggest challenges for believers. It leads to the why questions we are so fond off and which the enemy loves to hear coming from our lips. It is also a wound to our hearts which makes the enemy even happier. When we pray for something it is driven from a passion to see change whether it is a change of job, a change of residence or a physical change such as healing. Our spirits are yearning for something and we pour out that feeling in our prayers which is exactly what we should do. The difficult part is in the trusting. Often times we can attach a mentally assigned time frame to the response. Surely God wants to answer us so therefore it will come quickly and if we are truly honest with ourselves we expect it instantly. In the hot and now society we live in we don't like to wait for our drive thru food let alone an answer to our prayer.
So why do these answer sometimes tarry? Rest assured it is not because God has not heard you, nor that He wants to see you suffer. He is not a giant bully watching us squirm. Matthew 6:26 shows us our value to Him.
"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"
When we struggle with waiting do we honestly think that we are of less importance than the birds of the air or is it a matter of trust? Do we believe God is who He says He is and will do all that He has said He will do? Sometimes we look at the circumstance around us and "logically" reason that if God only realized the dire straits we were facing He would act. All the while what we are really hoping for is escape. We are in the desert of belief and we want God to zip in and move us into a happy place where our circumstances are better.
However, this negates God's nature. God is a redeeming God which means that He doesn't just remove us from circumstances He redeems them. How can He redeem a situation unless rather than removing you from it He brings you victoriously through it? How can he refresh a desert without bringing streams of water to it? Picture that you are standing on dry, caked, cracked desolate land. You can't plant grass to make it lush. You can't dig it up and change the nature of the soil. It needs water but there is no source of water. So therefore we reason that this desert is hopeless and we long to be transplanted to another place. The faulty reasoning here is that we look around and see no water so therefore we give up. We consider that logically for there to be water that has to be a source for it. What we don't realize is that God is the source. He doesn't need there to be a riverbed, a rain storm or even an underground water source. He can make streams in the desert that will cover the dry and cracked land and bring life to it. He redeems it and restores it to life.
If you are standing and praying for something, I encourage you to trust in who God is, not the result you expect to see. He will bring streams into your desert and redeem and restore that which you thought was beyond saving and He will turn it into a lush and thriving land.