It's not one of my finer qualities.

Maybe you struggle with it too.

I'm talking about one word. It's not that I shouldn't have figured it out by now. After all, I've had 50 years to master this word. But it is still a struggle. Is it a struggle for you too?

The word: WAIT.

Wait is an important word in your prayer life. (No, that doesn't mean you have to like it any more than I do; but it is, nevertheless, an important word).

WAIT.

Wait.

wait

You might feel the tug on your soul just reading the word. We protest, "I don't want to wait!" But even so, wait. Wait. WAIT.

God is up to something. He moves in His timing, not yours. He works in His time, not mine. So when we pray we need to come to Him with a trusting attitude that says to Him, "I can wait because I know your timing is better than mine."

• Are you getting tired of waiting? Why? Don't you trust the Father's heart?
• Are you impatient? Why is that? Do you really have to know God's timing to believe that He will work for your good?
• Are you frustrated with people who do not act in accordance to your prayers? Why does that frustrate you? Do you not know that God persists in working on the hearts and lives of people, even when we are tempted to give up hope and abandon our prayers? Like Adam and Eve in the garden, God is forever searching and calling out to wayward souls, "Where are you?"
• Are you as patient? Are you praying?

Why should we embrace this four-letter word in our prayer life? Why wait? Because you trust the heart of God; because you embrace the truth that God is good; that is why you wait. God is up to something as you pray.

So what do we need to understand as God tells us to wait? We need to understand that when God says wait, He does so for a reason.

Sometimes God says, "wait" because He wants to change my prayer.

Like it or not, sometimes we pray as the Bible says "amiss". In Acts 16, Paul prayed for a specific direction. The doors closed. Paul persisted in prayer. But as he waited, he discovered that God opened a new direction.

Sometimes God says, "wait" because He wants to change me.

Am I praying for the right reason? Are my motives rightly aligned to the heart of God? God is not concerned simply with our accomplishments. He is concerned with our character. After all, He is forming our character for eternity. Maybe the waiting is more important in you that the automatic granting of your heart's desire.

Sometimes God says, "wait" because He wants to stretch me.

C. S. Lewis said that the best prayer is not for God to change our circumstances, but for God to change us. That is a profound prayer of faith. I mean, consider this-the longer you have to wait for your prayer to be answered, the deeper your faith must grow. If you pray for the salvation of a loved one, and within two weeks they respond to Jesus that is wonderful! But if you pray for that loved-one; decade after decade; and half a century passes, and you still pray-and then finally the day comes and they turn to Christ, what a depth of faith that would require of you!

Sometimes God says, "wait" because He sees tomorrow.

God may not answer your prayer today, because He clearly sees the answer coming just down the road: a day away, two weeks out, next year, 50 years from now. And in the mean time, He is working the details, bringing together those God-coincidences, aligning His people, gathering the proper influences and events-to answer that prayer. So He says wait, because He clearly sees how it all works out-and the best answer He gave offer our prayer is simply wait.

Let's face it: we don't like waiting for anything. But sometimes the most important answer to your prayer that simple word: wait.

Wait.

Today, won't you wait?