Unanswered Prayers

So for all you country music lovers (or haters) I'm sure that Garth Brooks' old classic "Unanswered Prayers" is now running through your head. As I've mentioned in at least one previous post, we have been studying prayer & how to effectively pray on Wednesday nights at church. It was just a 3 week study, but I think it's changed my life and my prayer life forever. We've learned lots of things, from finding that one place at that one time to focus on prayer, to proclaiming God's glory--submitting to his will--then asking for our needs and wants, to praying with such persistence that God finds it honorable.

This week has been an eye-opening week for us...I can't reveal a whole lot on here, but let's just say that this week my husband & I had a huge burden lifted from our shoulders in a way that we never thought it would happen. In many ways, it was an unanswered prayer because God certainly didn't answer our prayers in the way we initially desired. God has revealed so many things to us and brought us to the place he wants us to be...and not the other way around.

We realized this week that that one big thing we were praying for so diligently would in all reality actually bring us more frustration, boredom, & disgust than true joy, peace or happiness. As we've all learned in our Sunday school classes from the time we could walk, unanswered prayers aren't unanswered at all--God just takes us in a different direction than the one that our simple human mind can comprehend.

Even though you've heard it all your life, pray diligently and God just might give you all the desires of your heart--even if it's not the answer you might have asked for in the first place.