Have you ever asked God for something but didn’t believe or have hope He would make it happen? Maybe it was while sitting in the bathroom getting ready to take a pregnancy test or perhaps a more serious situation in which you were pleading desperate prayers for a loved one while in the waiting room of a hospital? No matter the scale of seriousness or reason for your prayers, have you ever felt as though they never left the four walls of the room? It was as if they would just hit the wall, bounce back and smack you in the forehead. I know I have…many times.
There are many reasons I have been told as to why our prayers seem to be unfruitful or go unanswered, but I believe one of the reasons they might not get answered is because we doubt in our hearts, and we lack hope that God whom we say we trust, will even come through for us.
You might be reading this today and saying, “But wait! I do have hope when I pray!” However, I have to ask what kind of hope it is? For instance, when you pray, do you feel like you are standing at the “wishing well” just tossing up your prayers “hoping” God might answer, He might hear, or He might come to your rescue? Or are you fully confident and waiting with a positive expectation that God will hear you and answer? If it is the second, then this type of prayer is filled with the biblical definition of hope, and it doesn’t include thoughts afterward of “might,” “maybe,” or “will He or won’t He.” And this is the type of prayer that causes God to bend down to listen.
So let me ask again, what kind of hope do you have when you pray? Still unsure? This entertaining and less than two-minute skit should help you decide if your hope is wishy-washy or that of confidence. Please take a peek; it’s worth it.
Did you watch it? Wasn’t it such an eye-opener? It was for me. The first time I watched it, I had to ask myself this: Am I the person who, after praying, thinks of and points out all the reasons why the level of expectation shouldn’t be high, or am I the one expecting a downpour of blessings? How about you? Which person are you most of the time? I can venture to say that for most of us if we are honest, we spend much of our prayer time standing at the “wishing well.” We ask God to heal our bodies but then doubt He will. We beg for Him to answer our prayers to conceive but think in the back of our minds why He won’t come through for us. We ask Him for something, anything, but come up with every reason to doubt that He would or could. Just like each coin, we toss-up each prayer with the kind of hope that God might or might not and then stand back and wonder why we are disappointed.
But is praying with hope in God or expectancy that He will answer that important? Isn’t it better not to get your hopes up at all so that if your prayers aren’t answered, there won’t be as much disappointment? Let’s take a look…
James 1:6-7 tells us the importance of having a confident and positive expectation that good will happen when we pray.
“But when you ask, be sure that you really expect Him to answer, for a doubtful mind is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. People like that should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.”
If we want to receive anything from the Lord, we need to get our hopes up…we need to raise our expectation level! Each morning I wake up saying prayers filled with expectation. Prayers such as, “God, I am expecting to be amazed, and in awe of all of the great things You will do today.”
I can’t, nor could I ever guarantee, that if you expect a certain answer each time you pray that you will always get what you ask, especially in the time frame that you want it. But I can guarantee you this: if you stop standing at the wishing well when you pray, and start praying faith-filled prayers laced with true biblical hope, then your percentage of answered prayers will increase dramatically. I have seen it in my life and the lives of many others.
So, back to my original question, what kind of hope do you have when you pray? Are you praying with a joyful and confident expectation? Or do you end your prayers with thoughts of “Well, God might answer…God might do this for me…If I expect little, then I won’t get hurt…”?
Be expectant! God loves to answer hopeful, expectant, and faith fulled prayers.
Friends, what situation in your life are you praying for God to change? Whether it is conceiving a child, healing in your body or of a broken heart, a financial breakthrough, restoration of your marriage, or a new job, I encourage you to pray in faith and wait in true biblical hope because “The Lord is good to those who hopefully and expectantly wait for Him.” (Lamentations 3:25 AMP).
I would love to connect with you personally, so if you liked this post, pass it on, then come find Waiting for Baby Bird on the public Facebook page or join me on Instagram @waitingforbabybird. I can’t wait to “meet” you!
If you are looking for a faith-based infertility community of other women who “get it,” then head over to the *PRIVATE* Waiting for Baby Bird Support group for hope + encouragement. There you will find opportunities to ask for prayer, watch *LIVE* encouragement videos from me, author of “Waiting for Baby Bird,” as well as be able to share your heart with others on the same path, enter into exclusive giveaways, and so much more! So what are you waiting for? Find us here!