Unanswered Prayers

LONG AFTER Abraham and Sarah had given up hope of experiencing this joy, they held their very own son in their arms. It would have been easy for them to lose hope.

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Perfect Timing

GOD ISN’T in a hurry, so He didn’t have a problem waiting a quarter century before fulfilling His promise and allowing Abraham and Sarah to conceive. Who knows why He waited that long?

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The Secret to Prayer

LIKE MANY PEOPLE, I approached prayer simplistically when I first learned how to pray. Ask God for what you want. If you ask Him correctly or impress Him sufficiently, He just might grant your request. Or not.

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Going Deep

NEARLY TWENTY-FIVE years had passed since the Lord first spoke to Abram in Ur. Since then, his spiritual roots had pushed deep into the soil of faith in his God. At long last, he trusted in the Lord’s promise and rested in His sovereign will.

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No Surprise

What Job lacked here in tact, he made up for in total honesty. Frankly, this was no time for tact. Bildad has been brutal. It’s doubtful he would even hear if Job had been soft and diplomatic. Job gets tough! Sores will do that to you.

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The Workings of God

The workings of God are not related to our clocks; they are related to our crises. That’s why God doesn’t care if this is the last day you can buy that car on sale. It doesn’t bother God that it is the first day of summer or high noon or a quarter after seven.

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Wait . . . and Listen

During the three days of waiting, there is a “white space” when nothing is happening—at least nothing visible. You could easily tell yourself at the time, “I’m waiting in vain. Nothing’s going to change.”

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Ask and Trust

God does not mock us with the things He includes in His Word. He isn’t in the business of making His people squirm under some unrealistic expectation that they can never attain—something that is totally unique to one person.

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Times of Searching

Self-denial does not come naturally. It is a learned virtue (often hard-learned), encouraged by few and modeled by even fewer, especially among those who are what we’ve come to know as Type A personalities.

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Prayer of Faith

Isn’t it amazing how often people try everything but prayer? It’s like the old saying: “When everything else fails, read the instructions.” The same with prayer. When everything else fails, try prayer. “Okay, okay . . . maybe we should pray about it.”

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