- Whenever our prayers are according to our short-term desires, we are not only spiritually short-sighted but are actually wrestling with God’s long-term vision of handing us our eternal inheritance. And if the Lord should go by such prayers, His plan to ultimately bring us into His rest would suffer. So, many delays and denials to our prayers are actually in our best interest; they preserve our future in God. (Jam. 4:3, Heb. 9:15, 2 Cor. 4:17-18)
- Our ability to successfully trust the Lord for a natural, personal, or non-personal need is not necessarily proof of being spiritual. Rather, it’s our ability to still trust and follow the Lord, should He seem not to address such a need, or our ability to rather esteem the soul-saving experience(s) that surround delays and seeming denials to our prayers. (Job 13:15, Heb. 11:11, Ps. 9:10/46:3-5)
- A believer who is on course to securing victory over principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, is one who has wrestled with the hope of this world; who, therefore, struggles to be moved by the seeming delays to his prayers (Col. 1:23/27). As he takes possession of the peace that Jesus gives, the hope of eternal life will finally be born in his heart (Jn. 14:27, Tit. 1:1-2).
- Over time, the delays, denials, discouragements, discomfort, and defeats we face all do one thing; they expose our infirmities and vulnerabilities to us. (2 Cor. 3:5, 12:10, 1:3-4) This should drive us to fetch comforts of truths that are either in the word of Christ or the word of God, which will always heal and empty us of the nature and tendency to be offended in the Lord, or in the way He saves our souls from this world and its prince. (Col. 3:16, Heb. 4:12, Matt. 11:4-6)
- The reason why we can’t see God’s love all around us is because we can’t see how God saves us; how He does so even through the seasons of delays, denials, and of seemingly unanswered prayers. (Ps. 74:12, Rom. 8:28, Lk. 3:6) The only prescription of this is the knowledge of salvation or of the truth that is in the Father, which will help us to know the unknown; for by it, we can see the end of all things. (1 Pet. 1:19b, 1 Cor. 13:12e, 1 Jn. 2:8).
- Our consolation during seasons of seeming delays about God’s promise concerning our natural life should always be that He had already done more than what we can ever expect from Him; and we should keep relating with this understanding by faith and in thanksgiving, and live in peace and joy like Abraham should have done but for the anxiety of having a child. (Phil. 1:6, 4:6-7, Gen. 15:1-2)
- According to the New Testament economy, Spirit-led sufferings are the delays and denials we face concerning our natural and spiritual expectations; whenever we choose to seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness. (Rom. 8:18, Isa. 40:31, Matt. 6:33) And because it is a prolonged experience that is meant to purge us from our first death (sin and death) and of the potential of second death (iniquity), it is called long-suffering, and it exists both in seasons when we seek an understanding or entrance into the Kingdom of Christ and God. (1 Pet. 4:1, Col. 1:11, 2 Pet. 1:11)
- There are faith trials that are orchestrated by heaven to make us wiser than our enemies and give life to us and our household, especially those who are tied to loins in the spirit, either born or unborn. (1 Pet. 1:7, Psa. 119:98, 1 Tim. 4:16) And so, some of the delays, disappointments, or denials we face in life will continue, as long as we don’t bring order to our lives and households, as long as we don’t come into more alignment with some commandments hanging over us, because only then will God show forth His salvation. (James. 1:4-5a, 2Cor. 10:6, Psa. 50:23)
- One proof before heaven that we have used a season of delays in receiving the additions around our natural life that the Lord promised those who seek Him first—is that we are neither anxious about our (natural) needs or expectations, nor are our eyes fixed on them. (Matt. 6:33-34, Phil. 4:6-7, Isa. 26:3) And such are those who will grow in grace in those seasons when the Lord hedges us around; who will grow above their needs and embrace God’s needs as theirs, who will possess a peace they previously didn’t have. (Ps. 23:1, Ps. 132:2-5, Matt. 11:28-29)
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