By Eddie Smith
Are you like me? Do you tend to get frustrated when you don’t see the big answers you want to your prayers. I admit that I enjoy God's "suddenlies." But when instead, he chooses to move "subtlty", instead of "folding up my prayer tent and going home," I’m learning to notice those tiny adjustments and expressions of God’s intervention. I watch so carefully that when I see the slightest thing, I can celebrate it--in fact, magnify it!
In the Old Testament temple, some priests’ only duty was to watch for the manifest presence of the Shekinah glory of the Lord (Ex. 25:22). Today God is calling us as His New Testament priests to watch for, acknowledge, and intentionally celebrate even His smallest response.
This is how I do it. After I "make my case" to God in prayer, I begin the process of watching—watch and pray, as Jesus put it (Mk 14:38, emphasis added). In Colossians 4:2, Paul says, "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful." We are to look for even the slightest indication of God’s response. Why? So we can celebrate the small stuff, of course!
Let me give you a couple of examples of small stuff that could have been celebrated. Suppose a woman has been praying for her lost husband for some time. One day he turns to her and says, "Pray for Jim’s wife. She is going in for some medical tests today."
Whoa! Here is a lost man who’s making a prayer request! Instead of looking for a huge answer to prayer, it’s time for his wife to throw a praise party for this subtle indication that God is answering her.
Or, consider the mother who’s praying for her wayward son at 3:00 a.m. She’s lying facedown on the living room carpet, crying out to the Lord, when he staggers drunkenly through the front door.
"Prayer Woman, you can go to bed. I’m home," he declares. As he goes to his bedroom, he calls over his shoulder, "And you can pray for Tommy’s mother. They say she has cancer and needs surgery."
"Oh Lord," the mother cries out as he slams his door shut, "when are you going to do something with my boy?"
She really missed it. Let’s take a closer look.
1. Some drunken sons died in head-on collisions that night while others were arrested. Her son came home safely.
2. Look at what he called his mother: "Prayer Woman." He knows who she is and recognizes her kingdom role.
3. He gave her a prayer request because deep inside he knows she has access to God’s power.
It’s time for this mom to call some friends and throw a praise party. Well, perhaps not—after all, it’s 3 a.m.! But it’s certainly time for her to identify and celebrate God’s work in her son’s life.
Was this answer to her prayer subtle? Sure, it’s subtle. But God’s work often is. Subtle answers to prayer are especially difficult for us to understand when we live in an "instant" culture. It’s hard to relate to an eternal God for whom one day is as a thousand years. Impatient and with short attention spans, we want instant gratification—and we want it now!
When we don’t immediately get what we’ve asked for, we lose faith, but that’s our test: Are we focused on the demonstrations of the flesh and the devil in their lives? Or, are we focused on evidences of God’s work? As we learn to concentrate on what He is doing rather than on these negative demonstrations or on our own plans, we’ll see it.
Why does God seem to move so slowly and with such small steps? Possibly because
He is testing our faith.
He’s checking to see if we are paying attention to Him.
He’s working behind the scenes to prepare people, places, and things (including us) for what He’s about to do.
He wants to extend our celebration over a longer period of time.
He wants to know if we will celebrate even His smallest response.
It’s easy to become so enamored with the splitting of the Red Sea that we neither notice or appreciate God’s incremental answers to our prayers, as when He made the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots fall off! No kidding--Exodus 14:25!
A good way to acknowledge God’s subtle movements is to pay attention to what the people you are praying for say and do in their unguarded moments. These are often unconscious expressions of what’s going on inside them. When I see or hear anything, even the slightest thing that is positive, I try to record it in my journal. Then I begin to praise God for it.
Perhaps you have a child who is often angry, rebellious, and disrespectful. When you see him do something kind or respectful, celebrate it and thank God for it. He loves your celebration. After all, it’s the atmosphere of heaven!
To use a sports analogy, anyone can celebrate the final score of a game, but God wants us to celebrate every point that goes on the board because each one is additional evidence that He is at work—and it warrants our praise. After praying, too many of us turn our attention to the next need we plan to present to Him rather than waiting expectantly, identifying, and celebrating what the Father is doing in answer to our prayer. Don’t you imagine He’s tired of being ignored?
King David knew the importance of watching for the Lord to answer his prayers. He wrote, "My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning I will direct [my prayer] to You, And I will look up" (Psalm 5:3, NKJV, emphasis added). The Contemporary English Version says, "wait for your reply." After directing his prayer to God, David watched and waited expectantly for an answer.
Present your request to God with thanksgiving, then watch expectantly for any evidence of His divine intervention in the matter, no matter how small it is. While it’s true that I pray based on who God is and what He’s said and done in the past, I do expect to see expressions of His intervention. As I pray, I carefully watch for evidences of His answers to my prayers. That’s why it’s a good idea to journal these answers: I can read back over them later, which helps build my faith for future prayer projects.
If we ignore the subtle things God does in answer to our prayers, we won’t see much. So, consider right now something the Lord has done for you. Now deliberately praise Him for it. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Aren't you experiencing a bubbling up in your soul? That joy will explode into a smile on your face and a spring in your step. I’d be surprised if your disappointment and frustrations fade as well.
Elijah knew the thrill of seeing God answer prayer. After ordering the killing of 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah, he ascended to the top of Mount Carmel to pray for rain. But what he saw next was most unusual. It wasn’t rain. It wasn’t even a rain cloud. There was no thunder or lightning; there was only a cloud "as small as a man’s hand" (1 K. 18:44). Elijah saw this "micro cloud," turned to Ahab, and said, "You’d better get off of this mountain. There’s a serious storm coming." As he rejoiced to see God at work, that small cloud grew into a mighty rainstorm that ended a three-year-long drought!
The small stuff does matter, whether it is clouds or pennies. My two younger brothers and I spent each summer at our grandparents’ home near Gadsden, Alabama. My Granddaddy Jeff had a large pickle jar that sat on the floor of his closet into which he threw his pocket change. We looked forward to the times we were allowed to stick our arms into Granddaddy’s coin jar because we could keep all the coins we could grasp in one hand. While we never got much more than a dollar, we were thrilled and looked forward to the next year when our hands would be even larger.
My brothers and I thought the coin-jar experience was for us; however, now that I’m a granddaddy myself, I realize that it was just as much (if not more) for Granddaddy Jeff’s pleasure. He looked forward to those days with as much excitement as we did. He loved to see the looks of celebration on our faces, as I do when my grandchildren now reach into my coin jar today.
Does our heavenly Daddy long to see us celebrate like little children when He answers our prayers, not just in huge ways but also in small ones? I believe He does. Why not begin right now to pray and watch for the Lord to answer? You’ll be throwing praise parties before you know it.
And go ahead, grab a handful out of your Heavenly Daddy's coin jar. After all, He's filled it for you!
Adapted from Eddie's book, How to Be Heard in Heaven, available at http://www.prayerbookstore.com
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