Has there ever been a time in your life, whether it be in your family, your work or your ministry that you trusted God and He didn’t show up?
You may well have prayed without ceasing and got others who you thought ‘really knew’ how to pray, to pray on your behalf. You may have fasted for days and even sought God to show you what it was in your life that was preventing your prayers from being answered … but God didn’t show up.
To be honest, I have experienced many seasons like that. In fact it seems like I’m journeying through one right now. It seems like God hasn’t ‘shown up’.
These can be seasons of discouragement, disappointment and frustration. For some they can even lead to lost of faith and walking away from God. Sure, after all, ‘He didn’t show up’!
When you are in the midst of such a season, the answers some of our ‘super spiritual’ friends role out to explain why God hasn’t shown up can, at best, make us us even more discouraged.
That said, from my experience, I believe that there are five possible reasons why God didn’t appear to ‘show up’.
1. He did show up
Sometimes God shows up but we fail to recognise it as God. As the omnipotent God, He has many ways to answer our prayers.
Sometimes we are so focused on receiving an answer to prayer in the way we expect God to answer, that we miss God answering our prayers in a different way.
For this, we should give thanks.
2. He did show up but …
Not every prayer that we pray perfectly aligns with God’s best plan for our lives. As a result God may show up by answering our prayers in such a way that it realigns our plans, so that our steps are ‘ordered by the Lord’.
For this, we should give thanks.
3. He said no
Over the years I have asked God to do many things. Occasionally I have known God to not ‘show up’ in the way I wanted Him to, but actually make it clear to me that His answer was no. Only when we get to heaven will we truly understand the reasons why God says no, but I reckon more often than not it’s because God has chosen to protect us from taking a path that would have led us away from His plan.
For this, we should give thanks.
4. He said not yet
Often our schedule is not God’s schedule. We tend to be in a hurry.
When God ‘doesn’t show up’ it may well be that He believes it would be unwise to give us now what we are asking for.
Perhaps we are not yet ready. Perhaps there are other steps in our journey that we need to take first. His timing is perfect. We need to rest in that and not rush ahead of God.
For this, we should give thanks.
5. He said ask bigger
Now, for many, this reason for God not showing up may seem a big far fetched. However God has said in his Word that He is able to ‘do immensely more than we ask or can imagine’. We need to raise our expectancy and believe God for the impossible. God does not want our lives and the impact we can have for the Kingdom to be limited by our small minded prayers. For this, we should give thanks.