Devotionals for the Heart: How to wait on God's answers to your prayers

What Are You Waiting For?
A devotional by Leslie Bake

“In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.”—Psalm 5:3 (NIV)

What breakthrough are you hoping for? What is your next season of life for which your prayers have so far gone unanswered?

We are instructed to lay our requests before God. Psalm 5:3 says, “In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.”

As followers of Jesus Christ, we can expect to go through seasons of waiting, which is one of the hardest disciplines to learn. Culture teaches us instant gratification and self-reliance, so when our hopes and plans don’t happen on our timetable, how do we respond?

How do we wait expectantly and patiently as Psalm 5:3 instructs? By developing a daily habit of prayer and Scripture reading. By thanking God daily for the many blessings and gifts He has already given us. By praising and worshiping God daily for who He is and what He is going to do. Blending all these practices together is the key to keeping our focus on Him and not our perceived lack.

God uses challenging circumstances of waiting to draw us closer to himself. He may allow us to go without our need or desire to help us grow more dependent on Him. He may want us to learn that we need Him more than having our immediate desires met.

At the time I’m writing this devotional, my husband and I are praying daily for an offer on our house. The weeks are dragging by, and we are on a timetable, so our discouragement is weighing on us. My brilliant nephew who just graduated cum laude from college is searching daily for his “real job.” Another friend of mine is struggling in a difficult marriage. How long, oh Lord, how long? Four times the phrase “How long” is repeated in Psalm 13. I really appreciate this description of despair because it shows me God’s understanding.

Frustration and despair will consume us if we don’t turn to prayer and read God’s word—daily, or even hourly, if necessary. In fact, if God has given us the wonderful gift of time in the waiting, we need to take advantage of it and dig into His word for peace, clarity, guidance, and direction.

Prayer and scripture reading also keep us focused on the bigger picture of who God is. That means asking the right questions. Rather than demanding answers from God about what we should do, we need to shift our focus to who God is. The world wants us to focus on ourselves and what we think we ought to have accomplished or are entitled to. What God is teaching us in this season of waiting is equally important as our prayers and that includes complete dependency on Him and not on our own efforts.

God can’t prepare us for the blessings He has planned in His perfect timing if we refuse to slow down and listen to his guidance and direction through prayer. Stripping us of distractions and unhealthy relationships or control is sometimes His way of slowing us down.

Why does God seem slow to act on His promises? The burden of waiting can feel like a thousand pounds weighing on our shoulders. But often, we are the stubborn and impatient one. Sometimes God is waiting on us to cooperate with Him while He is behind the scenes, actively preparing answers to our prayers.

David, a man after God’s own heart, accused God of being slow. However, the Lord in His loving graciousness, did not take those accusations personally. The Lord told Samuel to anoint David for the throne of Israel at age 16. However, his start date wasn’t until age 30. During that time, David went through the entire range of ugly emotions of anger and fear to despair, depression, and doubt while on the run from an insanely jealous King Saul. David poured all those emotions out in a significant portion of the Psalms. If God hadn’t allowed 14 years of chaos in David’s early life, we would not have the comfort today that those Psalms provide as we endure our 21st century challenging situations and intense emotions.

God knows our need. God has known of our need while he was knitting us together in the womb. Our prayers do not remind Him to “get it together.” We need to pray our prayers to remind ourselves of who God is. The same God who spoke the Earth into existence and scattered the stars has our backs.

When that breakthrough finally comes, it may not be what we hoped for or expected, but we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that only God could have done it, and we give Him all the glory and honor.

Let’s Pray:
Heavenly Father, forgive our impatient demands. You are God and we are not. Give us a sense of peace and comfort while we wait. You will give us your best at the proper time. Thank You for using the challenges of our lives to draw us closer to You. Thank You for all the blessings you have already given us that we have been overlooking. In Jesus's Name I pray. Amen.

Song of Reflection: “While I Wait” by Lincoln Brewster. Listen to it here.

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Author Bio:

Leslie Bake grew up Lutheran in Des Moines, graduated from the University of Northern Iowa with an undergraduate degree in English, and with a new understanding of what a relationship with the Lord could look like. 

She spent a few years reporting and editing in small town journalism and then began a master’s degree at Iowa State University in teaching English to speakers of other languages. Then marriage. Then a divorce, which deepened her relationship with God and transformed her life.

She taught ELL for three years at Kansas State University, then returned to writing and earned a master’s degree in creative non-fiction in Pittsburgh. Her memoir will eventually be published, and it details the process of how the Lord created beauty from the ashes of divorce.

Pittsburgh is also where she met and married her second husband. They are now the parents of two wonderful children, one in fourth grade and one in kindergarten, and they make their home in West Des Moines.

She now maintains a monthly blog and is working toward expanding her writing ministry. Her heart’s deepest desire is to help others connect with God through writing.

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Connect with Leslie:
Website: https://lesliejoybake.com/
Substack: lesliebake.substack.com
Email: Leslie.bake@ yahoo.com