Day 13: A God Who’s in the Details!

If the request is wrong, God says, “No.”
If the timing is wrong, God says, “Slow.”
If we, ourselves, are wrong, God says, “Grow.”
But if all the above is right, then God says, “Go!” (Page 86 of Too Busy Not To Pray)

SCRIPTURE: When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. Then I said “O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands…O Lord, please hear my prayer! Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart to be kind to me.”

…The king asked, “Well, how can I help you?” With a prayer to the God of heaven, I replied, “If it please the king, and if you are pleased with me, your servant, send me to Judah to rebuild the city where my ancestors are buried.” (Nehemiah1:4-5, 11; 2:4-5, NLT)

In reading this Scripture, I am both amazed and discouraged by the details of Nehemiah’s prayers. Even while he’s in the presence of the king making this huge request, Nehemiah is constantly praying.

Chapter 8 of Too Busy Not To Pray is entitled, “The Hurt of Unanswered Prayer”. What struck me about this chapter was the amount of detail and length of time Bill and his staff spend praying over one staff decision as described in page 87 (Too Loving to Say Yes).

And even while making the decision, Bill is still asking God to lead him as to what he should do. Then just before he makes the decision, the Holy Spirit tells him, “No.” But what startled me was when the potential candidate asks Bill, “Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?” Bill was disciplined enough to trust what God had told him. I wondered: what would I have done if I were in his place? Would I have taken this as an open door? Would I have disregarded what I sensed the Holy Spirit had spoken to my spirit and simply walked through the trap door Satan had opened, thinking it was God?

Not only must every step of our lives be guided by prayer, but we must also be weaned from our need for circumstantial answers to our prayers. We must mature to a place where we walk with the Holy Spirit and obey what He tells us, even when Satan seems to use circumstances to confirm answers to our very prayers.