How God Answers Prayer

There are times when we see God work in very easy to understand ways. We pray for something and it happens almost immediately. There are other times where that isn't the case. We pray and pray and ask and ask and the thing that we are praying for does not come to pass. Such was the case over the past year.

As many of you know, I am just a few days from a church voting on whether to call me as their associate pastor for children and youth. My family has been at the church several times and we have begun making friends and participating in church activities. I am very excited about what the future holds and the adventure that God is taking my family on as members of the church staff.

Before we got to this point, though, I was actually hoping to be on staff at another church, the church that I was attending. The church had recently lost two staff members and there was an opening. I spoke with the pastor and things seemed to be progressing. I was praying for the opportunity and it seemed like things would work out. I had several meetings with the pastor and he even mentioned to the church the possibility of calling me to be the associate pastor.

Then things changed.

Suddenly, the pastor was no longer interested in calling me. The church began talking with another individual and he was hired instead of me. Needless to say, I was devastated. Why hadn't God answered my prayers and given me the staff position that I had been praying for over the past months?

As it turned out, this was how God answered my prayers. While the church I was attending is a great church, it would have been the wrong fit. I love many of the people there, but the pastor and I see things differently and that would not have been good for anyone.

God answered my prayer for a pastoral position by moving us to a new church. The new position is exactly what we were praying for and the way that it came to be was too remarkable to be a coincidence. It is obvious to us that this is where God wants us to be. We are just a few days from the church voting to confirm that call.

Sometimes God takes us through difficult and discouraging times because He has something much better for us. If He were to always give us what we think we want, we would quickly come to understand that what we think is best is not always the best that God has for us.