Week-Ending : Illustrated Devotional : Why Believe?

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you'

he rises to show you compassion.

For the Lord is a God of justice.

Blessed are all who wait for him!

~Isaiah 30:18

Waiting for a prayer to be answered can be challenging. 

Especially when the prayers involve prayers for a loved one, for health, or for a long-held dream. 

When we don't hear an immediate answer one way or another, our belief can feel like it's being chipped away as each day of disappointment leaves a bit more discouraged.

Which is honestly the way I've been feeling. 

Lately, it feels like everything is falling just short of where it needs to be and nothing is quite succeeding.

On my long walks through the woods with my dogs, I've had lengthy conversations with God, questioning everything I'm doing including trying to make writing a career instead of a hobby.

As you've probably guessed, the photo above is one of the many, many covers I auditioned as a book cover for my first devotional : Waiting with God.

I'm beginning to think this cover is very apropos for what the experience of waiting for an answer to prayer feels like. (Don't be surprised if it becomes the cover in a future edition of the book, you know how I love to change book covers!)

Like this photo, we can see the end result of our prayers. We know the lovely eggs contain the beautiful birds we want to hatch.

The eggs themselves represent our efforts. We've done the work.

That's just the point. We've done all we can, there's literally nothing more we can do.

That's exactly where we have to let go, step back, and believe.

If we tried to make those eggs hatch before they were ready, we've have the makings of scrambled eggs, not the beautiful young birds that would eventually stretch their wings and take flight.

We can't make the eggs hatch before the baby within has fully developed.

We can't hurry the process.

Everything will come together when it's fully developed.

While we wait, we must believe that God already has the outcome in order, and our waiting is a time not to erode our faith, but to bring us into a closer, deeper relationship with God.

Can we use this time of waiting to believe the eggs are not empty, but already hold the perfect answer to our prayers, and their entrance into our lives will come perfectly formed at just the right time?

Can we believe?


Kellie Loder- "What If I Believed"