Infatuated with women several times but never allowing myself to love deeply even when married. I was good provider each time but deep love is something I held back. I was really good in sales thanks to my Dad but he and I could not sit in the same room together two days in a row. We just never really got along. I loved him but I never told him. He died while I was away. I didn't know he was going to die that quickly but cancer waits for no one. I never got to say goodbye and in great anger at something he said I told him I wished he would die miserably. The real sad fact of his death is that many years before I had accepted Jesus as my Savior and yet I was filled with anger when he needed me most. I didn't know the day he died so I never made to the funeral. I was honestly sick inside for what I had said...I still am!
In the past I haven't allowed myself to have close friends and almost all those I called friends have gone their separate ways or died when I was somewhere else and didn't find out till later. I've been divorced several times and never really mourned their passing because they went to other men. Maybe they knew me better than I thought. I thought I had disguised my deepest feelings and I guess I was too good at it. How many of you had a caring person you loved that has tried to talk to you and get you to open up...no way on God's green earth could I do that...until a while back I finally gave in a little. Now, I risk losing her to disease.
God is sovereign and He will always prevail. He always has our best interest at heart. Sometimes it is not always the way we want it. Still, there is faith and hope. That has to stay first and foremost in our minds. We pray the prayer of faith and wait on God's sovereignty to show. Paul, the apostle, said in the first chapter of Philippians that for me to live is Christ and for me to die is gain-which is best Christian? He spoke the truth, we must look beyond this life.
My prayers in all honestly have been about 50/50 in being answered when I call on the Lord. Now, in looking back I'm glad most of those weren't answered the way I wanted even though I prayed some of them with great emotion. I even tried to make deals with God even though I knew better. I ran across this article by Alistair Begg that I think is worth using here. These are tough times but in tough times the tough need to get prayed up and get going! Who do we really trust...not politicians! Where is our faith better placed?
The Delay of Answered Prayer
by Pastor Alistair Begg
I called him, but he gave no answer.Song of Songs 5:6
Prayer sometimes lingers, like a petitioner at the gate, until the King comes with the blessings that she seeks. The Lord, when He has given great faith, has been known to test it by long delays. He has allowed His servants' voices to echo in their ears as if the heavens were brass. They have knocked at the golden gate, but it has remained immovable, as though it were rusted upon its hinges. Like Jeremiah, they have cried, "You have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through."1
In this manner true saints have continued to wait patiently without a reply, not because their prayers were not strong, nor because they were unaccepted, but because it so pleased Him who is a Sovereign and who gives according to His own pleasure. If it pleases Him to test our patience, shall He not do as He wishes with His children? Beggars must not be choosers either as to time, place, or form.
But we must be careful not to take delays in prayer for denials. God's postdated checks will be punctually honored; we must not allow Satan to shake our confidence in the God of truth by pointing to our unanswered prayers. Unanswered petitions are not unheard. God keeps a file for our prayers—they are not blown away by the wind; they are treasured in the King's archives. This is a registry in the court of heaven in which every prayer is recorded.
Struggling believer, your Lord has as it were a tear-bottle in which the costly drops of your sacred grief are put away, and a book in which your holy groanings are numbered. By-and-by your case shall prevail. Can you not be content to wait a little? Will the Lord's time not be better than yours? By-and-by He will comfortably appear, to your soul's joy, and will cause you to put away the sackcloth and ashes of long waiting and put on the scarlet and fine linen of full fruition.
1) Lamentations 3:44
Hang in their folks, the Lord ain't done yet! All the prognosticators have spoken of great doom. We will see because our faith isn't in them. It is in the one who saves us. He, who gave himself for us. He, who died and rose again victorious over death. He is our comfort when there is nothing or no one else to call on. We are all in this together and our prayers though delayed for many will be answered one way or another. I would encourage you to read Ephesians 6:14-17! There are many scriptures that tell us to be strong and full of courage.
See you next blog beloved,
Ted
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