WAITING ON GOD FOR ANSWERS TO OUR PRAYER

Scripture makes it clear that our heavenly Father hears and answers prayer. Yet we all experience times when, though we pray for God to act right away, He does not. What are some reasons for the delay?

At times the Lord sees that our attention is misdirected. Our relationship with Him should have priority over any earthly matter (Mark 12:30). Yet minds and prayers can become so fixed upon a need that our gaze shifts away from Him. The Father may delay His answer until we refocus on Him. In other situations, God waits because the timing is not right for granting our request. Perhaps certain events must happen first, or people’s thinking needs to be changed.

There are also seasons when the Lord wants to stretch and grow our faith. One of the ways He accomplishes that is by having us watch for His response. The Holy Spirit will work in these times of waiting to mature us and bring forth righteous fruit (Gal. 5:22-23).

Other reasons are a wrong motive for our request (James 4:3) and the practice of habitual sin. We all fall short when it comes to God’s standard of holiness, but some of us persist in a lifestyle of disobedience. The Lord may delay His answer so He can prompt us to confess our sin and turn back to Him.

Waiting on the Lord isn’t easy—faith and trust are needed (Heb. 11:1). If His answer is delayed, check that 1) your focus is on Him, 2) your motive for asking is God-honoring, and 3) you aren’t practicing habitual sin. Then believe that His response will be for your good and His glory.

Credit: InTouch Ministries

THE CHRISTIAN AND LONG SUFFERING

The fruit of the spirit as spelt out clearly in Galatians 5:22-23 are Love, Joy,Peace, Temperance,Meekness, Faith, Goodness, Gentleness and Longsuffering.
Longsuffering in other words mean patience or bearing something or a condition usually negetive for a long time. To me, it has been one of the fruits we always find difficut to bear, eat or make manifest in our lives.
We all have needs and I agree some are very pressing but we should have patience. Sometimes, we get angry at God when we present our needs to Him through prayer and does not receive answers immediately. We must learn to be patient, endure and wait upon God. Sometimes we must just wait a little longer. The word the Bible used was not shortsuffering for us to say the time should be short but the Bible said longsuffering. We may need any of the following; money for school or to pay rent, marriage, children or even a neighbour may be hating you for no cause and everything may seem to go wrong but we must learn to endure and when the positives are not coming despite our fervent prayer through fasting, we must still wait. The fact that the Bible says God will supply our needs according to His riches and that silver and gold are His does not mean when you are a christian, you will never face difficulties. At what age did Abraham and Sarah have a son? One thing we should know as christians is that, God has a time table for averyone. Unlike the time tables we have for our college lessons, God's time table may be slow but He is sure to cover everything in it concerning our lives. Even God has patience for us whenever we go wrong (Psalm 145:8-9).All we must learn to do is to have patience for after the suffering like the picture of Christ on the left which is a perfect example is abundant joy.
stay blessed.