LIKE BEING PREGNANT

Matthew 21:22 “If you believe, you will get anything you ask for in prayer.”
Have you ever looked at that verse and asked, “Okay, Lord, I’ve been praying, where is my answer?” I know I’ve wondered that sometimes, but the truthfully prayer is always answered...whether it is “yes,” “no,” or “wait.” In today’s society, we don’t like to wait. Not for anything. We want instant gratification. Quickie marts, emailed letters, fast food dinners, instant popcorn, and remote controls—there is no waiting. So, when we pray, we hope that God will follow our manmade timetable and quickly tell us “yes” or “no” so we can move on.

At one point, praying for God’s will was almost as common as brushing my teeth. It became all I prayed for, almost always with a bit of frustration attached. Then one day a friend of mine gave me the best explanation I’d ever heard. She compared waiting for God’s will to being pregnant. For nine months, the baby grows inside a woman’s womb, developing, growing, and preparing to physically to come into this world. As a woman passes the seventh month mark, they tend want their baby to hurry up and get here. The nursery is done, the tiny clothes are bought, the crib is assembled—all signs that a baby is on the way soon. This makes the mother anxiously want the little one to stop kicking her insides and come out to be loved and cared for. But even though the mother is ready, the baby isn’t. If the baby were to come too early, he or she may have physical disabilities or may not even survive.
When God is working in us, it is like preparing to have a baby. The signs are often there. Maybe He reveals some stuff in our prayer life. Maybe things at our job aren’t quite tolerable anymore. Or maybe the guy we’ve had our eye on forever is finally starting to notice us. Whatever the signs are, they begin to stack up and we wonder, “When God are you going to move?” It is then that we must pause and remember the pregnancy. If we are given what we want too early, “it” may not be fully developed. We may not be ready for the path that God has for us. Who knows, the person, the job, the event may not even be there yet.

One day, my husband and I were talking about a Jimmy Swagger concert back in the 1980’s. We realized that we had both been attendance, and were probably very close in proximity to each other. At that time, God knew that Richard and I would someday marry. But He didn’t have us meet. Well, why not? I mean, what’s a few years, right? If we were to someday get married, why wouldn’t God introduce us then?
The answer is simple. We are nine years apart. The year of that concert, I was only seventeen-years-old and he was twenty-six. That meeting, for obvious reasons, would have been too early, and most likely I would have always seen him as the “old guy” or an adult leader. Dating him would never have been considered. But by meeting him several years later, the timing was perfect.

My point? We have to trust God. I promise, God doesn’t hold His will back from us to torture us, but to grow us, to prepare us, to mature us, and ultimately make us the best we can be.

As we begin to pray for God’s perfect will for our lives, remember that He isn’t making us wait to torture us—He is preparing the perfect future, at just the right time, with just the right situation. And when we give birth to it, it will be amazing.

I Peter 62:1-2 NLT “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”