Which comes first, the prayer request or God's response? I know that at first glance this question seems really silly. After all, we bring the request before God, and He gives us one of 3 responses;Yes, No, and/or Wait. However, a long time ago i came to the conclusion that it may not be that simple.
This idea / question / concept came up near the end of my senior year at Elim Bible Institute, and it has caused a paradigm shift in how i think of prayer and answered prayer ever since.
It started one day when i was in a slump. A low spot if you will. I had heard other students talking about how they had gone over to Brother So-and-so's house last night and had dinner with him and his family again, and what a good time they had had (for those non-Elimites the professors & staff at Elim are referred to as Brother/Sister instead of Professor or Mr./Mrs.). Others chimed in, "Yeah last month we had dinner with them, and a few months ago as well." "Sister _____ had us over for lunch last week and we had a blast! I never knew that she...." As time went by, more and more people talked about the many times they had been invited to spend time with a staff member and their families, and it started to really bug me. I had heard stories in the past about someone's wife who made an amazing cake and how at the senior auction there would be groups of people who would pool their money together to win the bid on the cake to split 6-12 ways. I had no idea what the fuss was all about. Cake can't be that good can it?
Anyways, in my slump i started into the whole "whoa is me". You know what i'm talking about. Everybody does it some time. "How come this person has gotten invited over to Bro. So-and-so's house time after time, and no one has ever invited me over to spend time with them and their family." Ya-da, ya-da, ya-da. I won't go on. It's not a pretty picture, and no one needs to hear more complaining.
Since i was already in a slump i was just feeding into it even more. So eventually, as was becoming a habit, i brought it to God. I made my complaints known to Him, and let Him know how i felt. Within a week Bro. Harry Vellekoop stopped me and invited me to have breakfast at his house on Saturday morning. Needless to say, I was pumped! "Wow God, that was fast!"
So that Saturday morning i, and about six other students, showed up at Brother Harry's house for breakfast. While we were there Bro. Harry apologized for not having us over sooner. He told us that he has always tried to make it a point to get to know each and every student on campus, but that with the numbers up in the 300+ range, it had become significantly more difficult. His response became that he invites every senior over to his house for breakfast sometime in their senior year. So this was his chance to get to know the seven of us better.
Needless to say, this deflated my high a little bit, but we had a really good time overall. Meanwhile, it struck a cord in me. This question began probing my mind. Did this situation occur because i prayed and asked God for it, or did God prod me on to pray and make the request because He was already fulfilling it? Did He answer the prayer that i asked, or did He simply choose the right time to draw out the hidden frustration in my heart because He was getting ready to respond to it. It's funny that it was that week that Bro. Harry chose to invite me to breakfast, when he could have done it any week prior to or after that. If i hadn't said the prayer that week, would Bro. Harry instead have asked me to come to breakfast on a different week?
Since then, there have been numerous other times in my life where it seems like God has orchestrated similar situations to answer prayer requests i have not yet made, and it continues to lead me to question: "When it comes to prayer; which comes first, the request or the response?"
Image from edenpictures used under cc license.
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