Your Prayer Has Been Heard: How God Meets Us in Seasons of Weariness and WaitingSample

The angel's message to Zechariah was clear: "Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John." (Luke 1:13 CSB) God had heard both prayers - the one for a son and the one for a Messiah. A son was coming, and he would prepare the way for the Messiah.

But Zechariah's first response wasn't overwhelming joy or gratitude. It was cynicism. He looked at this mighty angel of God and essentially said, "I don't think so. We're too old for this to work."

Zechariah didn't respond in faith; he responded in doubt. He couldn't believe it was possible because, according to his understanding of how the world worked, the time for having children had passed.

This is our problem too. So often our expectations get in the way of our experiencing God.

All of us have expectations. We create mental pictures of how we think God should work, when He should act, and what His answers should look like. But when life doesn't unfold according to our timeline or our understanding, we struggle to see God's hand at work.

I can think of two specific instances in my life where I spent over a year praying for God to do something particular. I had clear expectations about what I wanted Him to do and how I wanted Him to work. In both cases, I didn't get what I expected.

But here's what's amazing: God heard my prayers. In fact, He answered them. He just didn't meet my expectations. He did something I didn't expect, and looking back now, I can see that what He did was far better than what I had asked for. If God answered my prayers exactly as I requested, I would be in a much worse place today.

But in the moment when God answered differently than I expected, it didn't feel like He was working. It didn't feel like He loved me or cared about me. It felt like He was ignoring me or had forgotten about me.

I love what one pastor says about these moments: "God's ability to work doesn't hinge on my perception that He's working." Just because we can't see or understand what God is doing doesn't mean He isn't working.

Our expectations, over time, tend to shrink our vision of what God can do. They put limits on His power and goodness. We start thinking that if God doesn't work within our understanding and timeline, then He must not be working at all.

But what if we surrendered our expectations? What if, instead of looking at the world through the lens of our limited understanding, we viewed it through the lens of humility and trust?

When you approach life with humility, you say, "I don't see everything, but I trust that God does. I don't understand everything, but I trust that God does." This kind of humility fosters trust, even when we can't see the entire picture.

What we experience with God in the future will largely depend on whether we view things through the lens of our expectations or through humility. Are we demanding that God work according to our timeline and understanding, or are we willing to trust that His ways are higher than our ways?

Zechariah learned this lesson the hard way. Because he doubted instead of trusting, the angel made him unable to speak for the next ten months. He would remain silent until his son was born.

But here's what's beautiful: during those months of enforced silence, God worked in Zechariah's heart. When he could finally speak again, the first words out of his mouth weren't complaints or frustration. They were praise and worship.

Tomorrow, we'll explore the difference between wrestling with God and doubting God, and why that distinction matters for our faith.