How should Christians trust in God?

Recently I was challenged on my view of God: If God hasn’t answered your prayer in a certain period of time, would you accept that He is not going to answer your prayer?

This question begs so many questions.

Firstly, is your prayer to God in line with who He said He was? If God has a title of being our Provider or our Healer or our Saviour, then we already have it established that this is His expressed purpose with us.

 If we are believing God for a healing and He has called Himself Yahweh Rapha, then we are praying in accordance with His will. If we are praying for God to provide for us when He has called Himself Yahweh Yireh, then we are certainly praying in accordance with His will.

Secondly, how long are we to grant God to answer our prayer? The impertinence in asking this question is astounding but let’s go on. Abraham was promised an heir and he waited patiently 10 years until Isaac was born, against all the odds, even, with 2 geriatric parents. Not only that, we have it said that Abraham was fully persuaded to do what God had promised:

¹⁷ As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

¹⁸ Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 

¹⁹ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 

²⁰ Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, ²¹ being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. (Rom. 4:17-21).

If Abraham was fully persuaded for 10 years that God would call into being things that were not, who are we to argue against God’s declared purpose to generate something that seems impossible, even if it is taking a long time?

Thirdly, we are told that God WANTS us to keep on asking and that He is not fickle, He won’t substitute something else for what He has promised.

⁹ “So I say to you, ask and keep on asking, and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking, and you will find; knock and keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 

¹⁰ For everyone who keeps on asking [persistently], receives; and he who keeps on seeking [persistently], finds; and to him who keeps on knocking [persistently], the door will be opened. 

¹¹ What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?

¹³ If you, then, being evil [that is, sinful by nature], know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask and continue to ask Him^!   (Luke 11:9-13 AMP).

Fourthly, Jesus demonstrated in His exemplary prayer that we are to ask for our needs:

“Give us this day our daily bread”. (Matt. 6:11 AMP).

God wants us to ask for those things that we need and it is ludicrous to think that in asking for our needs, that we should go away and believe that God won’t provide those needs.

Fifthly, faith is based on believing against all the odds. This is what trust in God is all about: refusing to believe what you are experiencing as the end of the matter but looking to what God has promised.

I’ll let these verses conclude the matter:

⁵ Trust in and rely confidently on the Lord with all your heart And do not rely on your own insight or understanding.

⁶ In all your ways know and acknowledge and recognize Him, And He will make your paths straight and smooth [removing obstacles that block your way]. (Prov. 3:5-6 AMP).

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