Recognizing Answered Prayers

Have you ever prayed about something and didn’t realize that God had answered the prayer, or God was going to answer the prayer, but not in the that you expected. My daughter had recently missed placed my husband’s phone while we were out of town. I prayed that the Holy Spirit would reveal to me where the phone was. I began looking for the phone. I searched for this phone high and low! I was going through toys boxes. I went through the couches. I even went through the trash!!! My daughter wanted to tell my husband that we didn’t know where the phone was at, but at that time I told her that I wanted to look for the phone a little more before telling him. I didn’t want to cause him to panic. At all, it was his phone and his work phone at that! About 2 – 3 days went by, and I did not find the phone and I had yet to tell my husband that we didn’t know where his phone was. The day before our scheduled flight my husband called me, needing a code off of his phone. You know, the phone that I had no idea where it was at!! Yes, that phone. I stalled with my husband for about 15 – 20 minutes before I told him I wasn’t sure where the phone was at. My husband’s response was “hold on, I’ll page the phone”. The alert went off on the phone until I found it.

This moment was an example to me of recognizing the answered prayer I prayed. I prayed that the Lord would allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to me where the phone was at. My thought was that it was going to be revealed by the Holy Spirit showing me a picture of where it is. However, that’s not how the Holy Spirit revealed the location of the phone to me. The Holy Spirit revealed to me the location of the phone by using my husband.

I want to encourage you not to be so single minded on how you expect your prayers to be answered from God. I’m reminded of the scripture in Isaiah 55: 8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Our natural minds have one way of perceiving a thing, but the Lord has another. Sometimes the answers will not look like what we expect them to look like but know that the Lord is still answering prayers.