Yes. No. Not Right Now.
Rather listen to this blog? Listen to “Yes. No. Not Right Now.”
I can’t be the only one who loved playing with the Magic 8-Ball as a kid. There’s nothing quite like entrusting a life-altering query to a piece of plastic filled with approximately 100 milliliters of alcohol dyed dark blue and a 20-sided die with answers varying from “it is certain” to “reply hazy, try again.” Human beings have been fascinated with knowing the answer to the unknown as long as they have walked the Earth.
If only answers to prayers came at the shake of a liquid-filled sphere. My prayers are usually not all that deep – usually things like “Lord, please let Chick-fil-a release spicy nuggets,” or “God, please allow my body to not automatically wake up at 6:30 am on a weekend.”
Of course, there are times when my friends, family members, or fellow Bible study students request that I pray for someone on their behalf. These are usually much more serious; requests for healings, employment, and reconciliations, to name a few.
Praying for just about anything is simple. I’ve learned prayer is, at its very basis, a conversation with God. You can come to him just to say “hey” or to thank Him for being who He is. It can last a few seconds or add up to hours over the course of a lifetime. When it comes to presenting your requests to him, asking is easy; it’s the waiting that’s hard.
We live in a time when you can order lightbulbs from Amazon and they’ll be on your porch the next day. You can purchase a pizza through the Domino’s website and track it from oven to driveway with the click of a mouse. Want to talk to someone who lives hundreds of miles away? No problem – just log onto Zoom and you’ll be face-to-digital-face in a matter of seconds. The 21st century is the time of I want it NOW, and if I have to wait for it, forget it. I’ll find someone or something that can do it faster.
What we miss out on when we focus on our frustration at a lack of an answer to our prayers is what we are supposed to be learning during the waiting. Jeremiah 29:12 says, “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.” The first step is to know that he is listening. When you come to Him in earnest, he will hear you out – that’s a promise.
What we aren’t promised is that the answer He provides will always be the one we long for.1 John 5:14 says, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” Is what we are asking of Him something He would want for us? Does it go against His word? Before you present the desires of your heart to Him, ask yourself those questions.
Finally, enter your conversation with Him with this understanding: the answer may be “yes.” It may be “no.” But it can also be “not just yet.” It may be hard for us smartphone-addicted digital-commerce shopaholics to get this through our heads, but sometimes the answer is simply “wait.” While you may think you’re ready for a straight answer, there’s a very real possibility some personal or maybe even spiritual growth needs to happen before the Lord can go from “better not tell you now” to “without a doubt.” Until you feel you’ve received an answer, keep asking the Magic Prayer Ball. Sooner or later, the murky liquid will reveal a clear result.
Romans 12:12 – “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
