{"id":13489,"date":"2013-08-04T18:29:53","date_gmt":"2013-08-04T23:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/?p=13489"},"modified":"2014-05-30T19:38:44","modified_gmt":"2014-05-31T00:38:44","slug":"gods-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/04\/gods-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"God’s Plans…"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h3>\n
In the last week our family has been praying for something very specific….\"sunset_sailing\"<\/a>….it didn’t happen.Now comes the normal responses of all of us as we seek to know what God is doing…<\/p>\n

I prayed, why didn’t he answer?<\/p>\n

This was really important to me, how could he not do it?<\/p>\n

Is there really a God at all if he doesn’t answer prayers like this?<\/p>\n

How can I trust him when he knew how important this was?<\/p>\n

Why pray at all if he doesn’t answer anyway?<\/p>\n

I’m sure you could add a dozen other questions to this list that you have asked as the plans and prayers you hoped for didn’t come true, didn’t materialize.<\/p>\n

What is God doing? What’s his plans for us? \u00a0How do we navigate this topic of prayer when often the things we ask for are very important to us? \u00a0Now what? \u00a0Can we trust him? \u00a0Should I even pray for things again since he didn’t answer this prayer? \u00a0Doesn’t he know how important this was to me?<\/p>\n

The emotions of unanswered prayer are intense. \u00a0The hoped for expectations that are crushed by a prayer unanswered are confusing. \u00a0Now what? Where do we go from here?<\/p>\n

There are often no words for the emotions that follow an unanswered prayer. \u00a0For me, after many years of knowing God, I realized that often my dreams and visions are not the best thing for me…and so I trust God for his plans, his directions….but it’s hard, isn’t it? \u00a0It’s hard when we asked, we wanted, we hoped…and he replies with silence. \u00a0Is he there at all? \u00a0Is he, as many say, the God of the deist…making it all and then walking away? \u00a0Unanswered prayers make us ask those questions…especially when he has invited us to ask!<\/p>\n

The bottom line for all of this is simply this- \u00a0God loves us. God is sovereign and his love, his plans, and his wisdom direct our lives for his glory and our good. \u00a0It doesn’t mean we always get what we want…and that confuses us because we “know” that what we want is the very best thing….if only God would give us what we prayed for.<\/p>\n

But often he doesn’t. \u00a0Now what?<\/p>\n

Solomon wrote these words,<\/p>\n

“The mind of\u00a0man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.”<\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/div>\n
When God says “no” I come back to this…God loves me,He has my best in mind,<\/p>\n

He has a plan for my life,<\/p>\n

and he’s sovereign.<\/p>\n

I can trust him to accomplish the best for me…..even when he says “no”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
In moments like this, when I don’t understand his “no” I go back to the verses that direct me when I don’t have answers…the verses that calm my confused and disheartened mind,<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
“Trust in the\u00a0Lord\u00a0with all your heart<\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0and lean not on your own understanding;<\/div>\n
in all your ways submit to him,<\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0and he will make your paths\u00a0straight.”<\/i><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the last week our family has been praying for something very specific….….it didn’t happen.Now comes the normal responses of all of us as we seek to know what God is doing… I prayed, why didn’t he answer? This was really important to me, how could he not do it? Is there really a God … <\/p>\n

Read more “God’s Plans…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6977,25],"tags":[6970,6975,6974,6976,6971,5469,5982,5,2578,675,2356,6973,6972,724],"class_list":["post-13489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archived","category-blogs","category-mike","tag-answer-prayers","tag-bottom-line","tag-deist","tag-directions","tag-dreams-and-visions","tag-emotions","tag-knowing-god","tag-love","tag-silence","tag-solomon","tag-trust-god","tag-unanswered-prayer","tag-unanswered-prayers","tag-wisdom"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianrep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}