When Prayer Feels Unanswered

Joyce Meyer brings an inspiring message to TBN’s Praise about waiting on God’s timing and plans when it feels like your prayers are unanswered.

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God is faithful, and what you don’t understand now, you may understand later may never understand it, but just because something hurts, that doesn’t mean that it’s bad.
And just because something hurts, that doesn’t mean that it’s not god.
I wanna talk to you tonight about what to do when god does not pick you.
Wow.
What to do when god does not pick you.
Well, in Psalm 37 verses 1 through 3, which I’ve been preaching on a lot lately.
The Bible says do not fret yourself over evildoers.
For they shall soon be cut down like the grass.
Now that doesn’t mean that we’re supposed to be happy about them being cut down.
It’s just thought I’d throw that out there.
But it’s just prophesying what will happen to evildoers if they don’t turn around.
So bottom line is is if you love god and you’re called according to his purpose, people really cannot.
They might temporarily take advantage of you or they might temporarily mistreat you But sooner or later, god will get it away from them.
And if he has to bring it through a thousand people, he’ll bring it back to you, multiply it many times over.
Amen? Psalm 37 verse 3 says trust in the lord and do good.
It does not just say trust in the lord.
It says trust in the lord and do good 2 distinctly different things.
And I love that verse because I think that many times people forget the second part.
Well, I’m trusting god. Well, what are you doing?
We need to trust god and do good.
And I think do good has two different parts to it.
I think doing good is being obedient to god, doing what you believe that he tells you to do And I also think that doing good means just being good to people.
You know that Christians are supposed to be good to other people.
We’re supposed to encourage edify lift up and smile at people and make people happy and help people and give people some of our money if they need some of our money.
Come on now. And I still think that we have a long way to go in learning what I believe is one of biggest spiritual secrets in the Bible, and that is that you overcome evil with good.
I said you overcome evil with good.
Whoever it is you’re mad at for whatever they did to you, you’re not hurting them at all.
You’re only hurting yourself. I said, you are not hurting them at all. You’re only hurting yourself.
Why do you wanna spend your life mad at somebody that’s out having a good time and don’t even care that you’re upset?
But if you trust god and do good, The best thing you can do when you’re hurting is gonna be a blessing to somebody else.
Come on. I said the best thing you can do when you’re hurting.
Is gonna be a blessing to somebody else. Fret not yourself over evildoers.
For in the end, they shall or soon, they shall be cut down like the grass.
Trust in the lord and do good.
You know, god does not have the same plan for everybody.
He’s got a good plan for everybody.
But god does not have the same plan for everybody.
And it seems like that two people can do the exact same thing right.
This person’s obeying on. This person’s obeying on.
And this person seems to get one type of reward or response from god, and this other person seems to get like a totally other response from god.
Let’s think about Noah for a minute.
In Genesis chapter 9 verses 1213, we see that after Noah obeyed god and he built the ark and He went into the arc and did everything that god asked him to do.
And when he came out, god gave him a sign to seal a new covenant with him that he would never again destroy the earth with water and that sign that he gave him was a rainbow.
I’m sure that after being in that arc for that long with all those I can’t even imagine what that smelled like.
Just imagine. I’m sure that he needed a rainbow.
And some of you could use a rainbow day right now too.
You know, I’ve never heard anybody say, oh, look at that stupid rainbow.
I mean, everybody likes a rainbow.
And, boy, if we get a double rainbow well, look at the double rainbow.
And some of you are like, yeah. I’m due for a double rainbow.
Well, what if god doesn’t give you a rainbow?
What if he gives you what he gave Abraham?
Abraham also was a man who obeyed god, made a lot of sacrifices, Genesis 12 says that god called him to leave his home and his family and everything that he was familiar with and go to a place that I will show you.
God didn’t even tell him where to go. I mean, really? God?
You want me to walk away from everything, and I don’t even have one little smidge of a bit of evidence of what’s gonna happen next.
How many of you hate it when god’s telling you to let go of this?
But he won’t Anybody ever make that statement?
I just feel like I’m being pulled apart. Well, here’s the thing.
When you try to hold on to this, while you’re trying to take hold of that, So you gotta, whoop.
Let go. And trust yourself completely to god. That’s scary.
But people who are willing to do that are the ones really who become the World Chambers.
And so after Abraham had done what god told him to do, and, actually, I want us to to read Genesys 12, the first three verses because it it’s actually really very exciting what god said to him.
Now in Iran, the lord said to Abraham, Go for yourself, for your own advantage, away from your country, from your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
So he’s asking him to do a very hard thing, but he said, this is for your good.
Do you know when god asks us to do hard things?
It’s not because he wants to just sit back and Watch us suffer. It’s always for our good.
I said it’s always always Always. Always Always.
For our good. And I will make of you a great nation.
And I will bless you with an abundant increase of favors, and I will make your name famous and distinguished and you will be a blessing, dispensing good to others.
This is get this isn’t this sounding good? I mean, I think this is sounding pretty good.
Abraham’s kinda like, oh, this this might work out really good.
And I will bless those who bless you, who confer prosperity or happiness upon you, and I will curse him, who curses or uses insulin language toward you and in you, will all the families of the earth be blessed?
Who? Alright. So now god is ready to seal his covenant, his agreement with Abraham.
And if we look at Genesis 17, Just a few pages over.
Versus 9, beginning in verse 9, And god said to Abraham, as for you, you shall therefore keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations, And this is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your prosperity after you.
Every male among you shall be circumcised.
And you shall circumcise the flesh of your fore skin, and it shall be a token or a sign of the covenant promise of the pledge between me and you.
And he who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised.
Every male throughout your generation rather born in your house or bought with your own money from any foreigner, not of your offspring.
And he goes on and on and on. Everybody had to be circumcised.
Circumcised means of cutting away at the flesh. Now here’s what I wanna know.
Why Did Noah get a rainbow.
And Abraham got a circumcision.
I am not liking this. God that is just not fair.
Hello, ladies? That is just not fair.
I’ve been believing you got for so long to get married, and she’s already been married three times.
And and you might not say that loud, but you’re thinking, and she’s not nearly as godly as I am.
We just don’t do good with the fair thing.
But I can tell you that the greater god is going to use you.
Now don’t don’t get me wrong. God used Noah.
He was an awesome man of god, and god really used him, but Abraham was used in a much greater way.
So Noah got the rainbow. He did his job here. Have a present.
But Abraham had some stuff.
He had some stuff Anybody got any stuff? Yeah.
He had some stuff that needed to be cut off.
Come on.
Because god had a greater plan for him.
You know, I was grumbling to the lord one time about how it just seemed to me that he just wouldn’t let me do hardly anything.
And you’re always you can’t do this. You can’t do that. You can’t do this. You can’t do that.
And I saw other people, people in ministry doing those things, people serving god, doing those things, but And so I’m like, I don’t understand Don.
And this is what the Lord said to me, and maybe somebody here tonight needs to hear this.
Look, Joyce, you’ve asked me for a lot. Do you want it or not?
Have you asked god for a lot?
Yes. I wonder who’s in here that said, god use me to change the world.
Oh, honey. Honey. Honey. Honey. Let mama counsel you.
Use me to change lives.
Or how about this one? Jesus, I wanna be just like you. Oh my goodness.
Uh, surrender all.
Oh, we love to just get the goosebumps in church.
Lord have mercy.
You gotta get something here tonight that you can take home with you because the truth is you gotta go home.
And I can’t promise you that any of the ugliness at home is gonna look any better when you go back than it did when you left it.
But I can promise you that you can be You can be different.
Thank you.
You know, in Genesis 12, when god was reading all that great stuff to Abraham.
Well, I’m gonna make I’m gonna make your name famous, and you’re gonna be rich, and you’re gonna have this and do that.
You’re gonna have favor, and you’re gonna end up being a blessing to everybody.
To me, it was kinda like if you go out and you buy a puzzle.
We always buy it based on the picture on the box.
Come on.
6000 piece puzzle. See, you’re smart.
You know where I’m going. And that boy, that’s really pretty. Awesome.
So you take that dude home and you get your puzzle table out.
What have I done?
So we start with the easy stuff. We get all the straight edge pieces.
Come on. Let’s start with ease and stuff.
Let’s do the easy stuff. So you get all the straight edge pieces.
And so now you have this outline, you still really don’t have anything, but And then it’s like there’s like, I don’t know, a 1000 blue pieces.
A 1000 pieces of blue sky.
And after about 3 weeks, you are so fed up with putting together blue sky Come on.
And we got some people here tonight. You are like fed up with blue sky.
And you’re like, you had blue sky till you just like, I cannot do the same thing anymore.
God over and over and over and over and over and over again.
So then maybe you go to green grass.
And there’s two thousand pieces of that.
A dream comes to pass with much business and painful effort.
That’s Ecclesiastes. I’m not making it up. And painful effort.
None of us have the time for me to stand here and tell you what it’s taken to get from where I started.
To where I am.
We don’t have I don’t have that much time left to live to tell you that.
And nobody really knows, but you and god.
What it costs you If you’re gonna fully and completely do the will of god because you’ll be judged and criticized and people will not understand you, and people are going to be jealous of you, and they’re going to be critical with you, and you’re going to be disappointed.
And sometimes you’re going to be disappointed with god.
And there’s gonna be all kinds of things that are not going to be fair as far as looking at them in the natural, and you just want a rainbow.
But you keep getting a circumcision And then, you know, it wasn’t just Abraham that got circumcised.
Everybody had all the men had to get circumcised. I don’t think he was probably a very popular guy.
And sometimes even the people that are gonna work with you and be around you and help you and whatever god’s called you to do, then they’ve gotta all get circumcised.
Because, you know, sometimes you’re just like, you’re waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.
You’re just like, god, I know I’m ready. I know I’m ready. I know I’m ready.
And one time, the Lord told me he said, yeah.
You are ready, but he said, all the people that you need to help you aren’t, so you’re gonna have to be still and wait on them.
You can’t do it by yourself.
And then, you know, there’s those pieces that you just fed up with this thing.
And so you’re just like, That’s going in there.
I don’t care if this fits or not.
You know, what I’m talking about. Amen?
But let me tell you something.
Sometimes there’s no pieces in your life that just don’t make any sense and you can’t find any place to put it.
You can’t find any place in the picture that you feel like god showed you, the picture on the box, you can’t find anywhere to put that piece.
It doesn’t make sense. Why god? Why? So you have to just set that piece aside.
And just prior over that piece.
Ladies, we live life forward, but we understand it backward.
We don’t understand everything that happens to us, do we?
But it will fit.
Romans 828 But now here, listen, all things work together.
Each thing may not be good, but when you get them all together, And see, we’re we’re still waiting some of us for some of the things to come together.
Amen? But I just wanna tell you from experience and what I know from the word of god.
And I know that people try to cheer you up with this stuff all the time, but I mean it with all sincerity.
God is faithful. And what you don’t understand now, you may understand later.
You may never understand it. But just because something hurts, that doesn’t mean that it’s bad.
And just because something hurts that doesn’t mean that it’s not god.
The Amplified Bible in Proverbs talks about sanct to fight experiences that we have with god.
There are things that we go through that may look like they’re bad, but they’ve been sanctified by god for our spiritual growth and our character building and testing.
The testing of our faith. Let me tell you something.
We can shout and holler in church all we want to, but we don’t know what we believe until it’s tested.
You don’t know what you believe until it’s tested.
And those tests are important because they put the devil in his place, and they give us confidence.
And they make a strong. They make a strong.