Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast.
Episode 4. When God’s Answer is not Out for Delivery
Hello human.
(click here to listen)
Today’s BUOY is not about God’s response to our prayers. Not yet. It is about how we handle THE WAIT that runs between God’s timing and the answered prayer.
I have recently joined a group in which prayer is far more than an opener or a closer. I welcome it. I need it. I also have resolutions on my mind because I know that the holiday ride is about to begin, and before I know it, I will find myself waking up to Sunday morning, January 1, 2023.
So, this is my first-draft iteration of a prayer resolution because I have found that resolutions work best when slow-cooked. I will circle back on today’s cerebral soup on December 28, episode 13.
This episode is about how we steward a pending prayer request, hinged on God’s timing. The same God that had Moses wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years. Abraham and Sarah were without child until they were 100 and 90, respectively. David waited 20 years to be King of all Israel. Jonah spent three days and three nights inside a whale for a blubbery time out “to think about a change of heart.” Yet, God instantaneously healed many as did His Son during His earthly walk, all upon simple requests from hurting folks. God’s timing seems all over the place. But always the right place, and the right time.
2nd Peter 3:8 says:
8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
That explains all the wilderness walking, the waiting to procreate maybe, but I have a hard time getting my brain around waiting indefinitely. If there is anything I am impatient about, it is time and timing. This earthly world has applied an algorithm to our lives that solicits our attention in a certain way at a certain time for a predetermined result. Automation is a given. We are readily impatient because of it.
I have thought more than once, for the sake of clarity, that God make His timing known to each of us, perhaps like how Amazon does it. Ordered, shipped, out for delivery. I could use an automated system for God’s responses in my life. I pray to place my order. Then something happens—a cue—that I interpret as “about to get an answer” that my answer has been shipped, and hopefully the right one, the right answer. Shipped. It’s on its way. I think waiting 3-5 business days, or perhaps business-in-heaven days is reasonable. I receive an alert, that my prayer answer is “out for delivery” by 8 pm.
I could live with that. It’s clear from this scenario that I want to know when God’s answer is coming. What I want more than that is the preferred answer. I got the job, the raise, the car, the call, the conversation, the gig, the book, the thang. A problem solved. An illness healed. A good diagnosis. Someone saved.
So, what exactly do I do during THE WAIT? How do I even know what to do during this time, not knowing His answer? How do I proceed when I don’t know the direction? I know I have to come to terms with what I do—a convicted heart—to get past what I do. Hence, 99 buoys.
Let’s swim.
Seeking Endorsements for the Right Answer
Sometimes I spend THE WAIT seeking endorsements for the God-answer I am hoping for. Make assumptions. Build the integrity of the answer I am hoping for on false markers. Pseudo applause. Rally support for what I think should happen. How do I do this? I seek out people to confirm my desires, to emotionally notarize my interpretation of God’s plan for my life. They want to be supportive, because I have carefully chosen these people, so they respond with “that sounds right, doable, you would be good at that”. It makes me feel better. I have found the people that will give a 5-star rating for how I want the story to turn out.
Yet, Proverbs 16:9 says:
9 In their hearts humans plan their course,
but the Lord establishes their steps.
Trading Good Works for a Quicker Answer
Sometimes I try to smooze God’s response with good works. Trade them for an answer, the preferred answer. This is not unlike what we did as children, and for those of you who have children, what they do to us.
We ask our parents for something.
They respond with “we will think about it.”
We (the “askers”) instantaneously become inspired to do good work: clean our room, take out the trash, visit a neighbor, volunteer at church, read our Bible for five straight days, pray, pray, pray for His Will.
But we should ask ourselves if we really think these good works will coax the God who created heaven and earth, the God who knows everything?
Sounds ridiculous just saying it. God is not transactional.
Perhaps these “deeds” put us into a deeper state of obedience. That’s not a bad thing. But as Jesus said over and over again during His earthly walk, everything is a heart matter. So, I pray that when I do this, that He will turn my heart-ship toward the love of doing good work to celebrate His glory and my redemption, separate from anything my human nature desires. That Jesus will separate my prayer request from what I do during THE WAIT.
Missing the God Bus
Have you ever missed the bus? I have been on my fair share of buses in my life. Enroute to school and camp—doing homework, flirting, teasing, singing, dozing, braiding hair, reading. In my adult life, mostly on public transportation. Waiting at the bus stop.
For one bus connection in New York City, when I worked on 104th street and Fifth Avenue, I got off one bus at the last stop before 97th street, about one minute before another bus was scheduled to pull away from the curb on 97th street and Fifth Avenue. I had to go about 400 ft on foot to an intersection, cross Fifth Avenue going east, and a quarter block to reach the doors before the bus driver made the abrupt commitment to close them. Once closed, they stayed closed. I ran because I discovered that if I ran, the bus driver would see me running and more often than not, wait for me to run to the intersection, cross, and jump onto the steps to make that crosstown bus across Central Park. Making that bus got me to 86 th street 30 minutes earlier.
Half the time I missed it though. Not unlike when I find myself waiting for the God bus. Bus after bus goes by. Finally, asking others waiting, have you seen my God bus? It should have been here by now. I’m expecting an answer to a prayer. My answer is on that bus.
But if I ask a discerning family member, friend or anyone who has committed themselves to honesty about what is in my best spiritual interest, that dialogue often goes something like this:
“Kathryn, that bus came through an hour ago.”
“But I was here, I didn’t see it.”
“Well, it was here. I saw your answer on it. Sitting in the 5th row back, window seat, staring straight at you.”
“How could I have missed it? I have been here, waiting the whole time.”
“You were looking for the wrong bus.”
Sometimes I am waiting for an answer to a prayer that has already been answered. I wouldn’t have missed it if I had been open to whatever God’s answer turned out to be. If I was open, instead of positioning myself for the preferred answer I could be across “Central Park” by now, doing His work, on a different street.
Prematurely Acting As If
Another Kathryn tactic is prematurely inching forward, executing on the answer I want from God. Recently I considered a new opportunity. I do new adventures very well. While the discovery process played out over several weeks, I found myself beginning to do things that worked toward the answer I was hoping for… my mental script ran like this: “God knows me, and how much I love this kind of adventure, He wants me to have JOY, and THIS does THAT.” So I began, for the lack of a better verb, to sneak up on the plan, stack the thought deck and plan for decisions that spoke to and supported that desired outcome.
Any sailor will tell you that without wind, you are not going far.
That opportunity turned another direction. So mentally and emotionally I loosened my grasp on it, and let it slip away. But the process of considering that adventure now has me thinking and praying about my life in a new way that only God can form, like when His spirit was hovering over the waters in the beginning. That kind of power. For that, I WAIT.
What’s the Worst That Can Happen?
So. What’s the worst that can happen? A mental takeover that does not end well. The more I have thought about what I have asked for, what I want the prayer answer to be, and come up with a plan that would work, created a mental storyboard of how this will all just be a fabulous path God has set, plant flowers along that path, pack for the weather along that path, the less chance it is God’s plan for me.
Again.
The less chance it is God’s plan for me.
Why? Because I don’t have a divine nature, God does. Because that is a cue that I am yielding to the mindset of “a takeover” … that I have gotten out ahead of God, I have shown my capability as an earthly highjacker, kidnapper, bank robber. At the very least I have committed a personal misdemeanor, a heist on my own life.
Proverbs 27:1
“Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.”
How do I boast? I approximate God’s answer by my own human desires, and limitations. I force the timing as if it is possible to coax God to take my counsel.
When God reveals Himself to me, when I witness His nature along my path, it is not an approximation.
It is His way, the divine truth, in my life.
I just shared a whole lot of honesty. That I have now put in your care, human. It is a good thing that Peter, our passionate, persuasive apostle reminds us:
1 Peter 5:6
Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,
Humility and the mighty hand of God.
Sounds like a good place for my prayer resolution to simmer for now…
The next resolution in my holiday kitchen is looking at “how I honor reading and growing in God’s word.”
What’s simmering in your cerebral soup for 2023?
His grace. My gratitude.
See ya on the Buoy.
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You can find me at kathrynbise.com and @buoykathrynb on Instagram.
Buoy is a Life in Deeper Water podcast.