The Cemetery Of Yet Unanswered Prayers

Hello blessed child of God, I hope you’ve had an awesome week in the presence of The Lord, mine was quite good thanks to Him.
This week I’ve been challenged by God in so many areas of my perspective. I thought of sharing a little bit of these with you.
I’m sure you’ll relate to at least one of these scenarios.

• Here’s a new school year and this is your first day in this new class. You meet someone whom you love and appreciate, you want her to be your best friend. The more you get to know her the more you realize how screwed up her life is. She’s depressed, hurt, broken, poorly-treated by her mother-in-law and aunts, and she has no goal for her life. She doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ and she lives in complete misery and confusion. You begin to pray for her everyday. You’re sure that God put her in your life so that He would use you to bring her to Jesus, you keep praying and praying but 4 years later, she’s still in the same situation…it seems like nothing has changed yet and you ask yourself if you should continue praying about it
• Someone you dearly love and respect is really sick. The medical reports are out and reveal that it’s cancer. Every single thing is done for the therapy to be successful. You’ve prayed like never before, fasted, asked your friends to help you pray about this, stayed up all night to pray about it, but today your dearest one is still not cancer-free.
• You’ve lost your job. At first you were desperate about it, but then you decided to trust God with this. You started praying, praying and praying, but nothing changed. Here you are 2 years later still waiting for God to reply to you and grant you a decent job.

In such a situation it’s easy to ask ourselves “When should I just give up and stop praying for something?”
There’s nothing wrong in praying for a friend to have a relationship with Jesus Christ, for a loved one to be healed, or for a job to give glory to God and to provide for ourselves and our family. But God’s plans are not always our plans especially at the level of timing.
What do we do when we don’t see answer yet? Do we give up? Or do we keep praying? When should we put it in the cemetery of (yet) unanswered prayers?
I was frustrated with this earlier this week. I had already begun to cut down on my list of prayer topics for a few things about which I wasn’t seeing any concluding results. I shared my frustration with God because I read someday that it’s important to tell God how you feel. When you’re happy tell Him, when you’re frustrated or angry because of an unanswered prayer tell Him. Don’t wear masks with God.
So I shared with God how I felt and He replied to me in a very special way which changed my perspective on prayer. Permit me to share this with you today all for the glory of His Name.

The Seed And The Shoots

When you plant a seed in the ground, and that you don’t see any shoots yet does it mean that the seed is not germinating and that you have to give up on your harvest ?
No, because the seed needs some time in the ground to germinate and even the shoots will need sometime to come out of the ground before you can see them.
In the same way, every prayer is a seed. When you pray for something, it’s like a seed you planted in the ground. The fact that it’s in the ground and you don’t see it germinating doesn’t mean that it’s not germinating. It’ll take sometime for it to germinate and for you to see the first fruits.
We have to give time to God to perform His miracles in our lives, to answer our prayers. At times we give up and stop praying while our angels are still on the way, while God is still fighting the battle for us. But if we had supported this battle long enough with our prayers, we would have seen the results.
Exodus 17:8‭-‬13 NLT

While the people of Israel were still at Rephidim, the warriors of Amalek attacked them. Moses commanded Joshua, “Choose some men to go out and fight the army of Amalek for us. Tomorrow, I will stand at the top of the hill, holding the staff of God in my hand.” So Joshua did what Moses had commanded and fought the army of Amalek. Meanwhile, Moses, Aaron, and Hur climbed to the top of a nearby hill. As long as Moses held up the staff in his hand, the Israelites had the advantage. But whenever he dropped his hand, the Amalekites gained the advantage. Moses’ arms soon became so tired he could no longer hold them up. So Aaron and Hur found a stone for him to sit on. Then they stood on each side of Moses, holding up his hands. So his hands held steady until sunset. As a result, Joshua overwhelmed the army of Amalek in battle.

You are the Moses of your situation. So long as you keep your hands up in prayer your seed is going to germinate, your plant is going to grow. But if you grow tired in prayer and do nothing to fix this, you will lose the battle.

The Shoots, The Branches And The Fruits

Once you start seeing the shoots, will you say “Okay I’m done I’m not watering this plant anymore and I’m not putting in any care any more because the shoot is all I wanted”?
I doubt that you would say this. What we wanted when we planted that seed was a tree, a very big tree with fruits that we could feed on.
The same goes for prayer. You planted your seed, you prayed to be in a godly relationship and to get married to a godly woman. Now the woman is here, you’re in a godly relationship, but you stop here. You have the shoots and you stop praying, while you should pray further for the branches and the fruits. Don’t end it here. Keep praying for God to build your relationship, keep praying for God to help you get married to each other. Don’t stop at the shoot. Pray till the results are complete.
You prayed for your atheist classmate to stop taking Marijuana and to come to Christ. Your classmate has stopped taking Marijuana and has still not given his life to Christ but now you’ve already stopped praying for him. Who told you to stop praiyng for him? Complete your work. Finish what you started. Don’t dump it to the cemetery of “unanswered prayers” because you say “God made him stop Marijuana but he’s still not a Christian. My prayers don’t work”. Your prayers work, prayer works, just that you’re not done praying yet.
Don’t be so You planted a seed, it has shown some shoots but you still have to water it and fertilize the ground with prayers till it grows and grows into a big tree with fruits. Till your friend surrenders his life to Jesus and grows in Him
Mark 8:22‭-‬26 MSG

They arrived at Bethsaida. Some people brought a sightless man and begged Jesus to give him a healing touch. Taking him by the hand, he led him out of the village. He put spit in the man’s eyes, laid hands on him, and asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up. “I see men. They look like walking trees.” So Jesus laid hands on his eyes again. The man looked hard and realized that he had recovered perfect sight, saw everything in bright, twenty-twenty focus. Jesus sent him straight home, telling him, “Don’t enter the village.”

At times God will answer instantaneously but some other times He will make it gradual. Just as Jesus gave sight to this man in stages, God will often make the seed you planted grow into a tree in stages. Jesus didn’t stop at the blind man’s stage one, He kept working on him till he recovered his perfect sight. This is how you should keep praying, till the perfect result is visible.
If Jesus never gave up on you why would you give up on Him?
God will often make it gradual to grow your faith.
He’s asking you “Will you trust Me with this?”

The Christian’s Life Is A Life of Prayer

The biggest conclusion to all this is that the Christian’s life is a life of prayer.
Prayer is about communicating with God and we’ll need that for all our lives.
When you’ll pray to get married and He answers you, you’ll still have to pray for kids. And when God will bless your marriage with kids, you’ll keep praying for Him to keep them in His ways. Then you’ll be praying for their studies, their careers, their choice of spouses etc etc.
What we can say is
“ A prayer breeds another and so on and so forth ”
Or
“Prayer breeds prayer”
It will never stop and we should never stop. Don’t give up now because God didn’t answer when you wanted Him to answer and in the exact way in which you wanted Him to answer. Keep in mind that He’s always working in the background and that if He has to change things in this world He’ll do it through you, through your prayer and faith.
Don’t burry your unanswered prayers in the cemetery. Keep watering the ground with prayers and faith that very soon you’ll see the shoots, that very soon it’ll grow into a big tree with awesome fruits.
Your seed is on schedule as Pastor Steven Furtick says so well.

Prayer

Father Lord God Almighty, open my eyes today, speak to my soul. Show me some things I should never have given up praying for, and grant me the faith and courage to pray for them till I see you move mountains, and also help me develop gratitude through every step, from seed, through first shoots, to branches and fruits in Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen

Sermon Assignment

Please to take this teaching further, take time this week to watch “The Seed is On Schedule” and “Let The Dirt Do Its Work” by Pastor Steven Furtick

It’s Now Your Turn

What do you need to get back to praiyng for? Please answer in the comments section.
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Thank you so much for reading
God bless you
Victoria Eyog