I was thinking about this the other day and decided to share it with you. I wrote it some years ago, but I find it appropriate for us today, just having come off the fast. I trust you will be encouraged by it as you are reminded that we are still praying for some things, not just as indi-viduals, but as a church. For reasons that will become obvious, my only hesitation about reproducing this arti-cle here and now is it has to due with our weather; spe-cifically the lack of snow. So use your imagination:
I was walking back to the church from lunch at home today, and as I cut through a nearby parking lot, heard a loud crack and rumble. Turning to the source of the noise, I witnessed a sheet of snow and ice cascading down the surface of a large Quonset hut. What had seconds before been a building uniformly blanketed in white, now had several square yards of exposed corrugated steel.
What I immediately thought, though, was that what appeared to have happened so quickly was actually the result of a process or series of events which simply culminated in the sudden avalanche. Heat from inside the building, along with solar energy, slowly warmed the surface of the build-ing over the course of hours and days, and at the molecular level, things were happening very quickly indeed. Molecules of water, stilled by the cold, were excited by the heat, began to move more rapidly, and assumed a liquid state, loosening the bond that held them to the building. Micron by micron, then inch by inch, the layer of ice closest to the building melted, until the weight of the ice no longer stuck to the roof and could no longer be supported by the lower part that was. THEN, all at once, it let go.
Got me to thinking further: there’s still a lot of snow on the ground. It will all be gone soon, but we won’t witness most of it disappearing in an av-alanche. It will melt slowly or be washed away by the rain, but it will be gone nonetheless. Also, a bolt of lightning could have struck that building, instantly heating it up to thousands of degrees, and instantly loosening the ice; that happens, too. I really do believe that’s how it is with our prayers offered in faith. God is active in bringing about the answer, but often, maybe even usually, we cannot see the process. Sometimes it is like the snow on the ground; we pray, and through faith and patience inherit the promise. No bolt from the blue, no avalanche. But the healing is manifest, the need is met, the deliverance achieved, the relationship restored, etc. Other times, it is an instantaneous miracle; a lightning-fast total answer to prayer. And sometimes, it is like the ice and snow I saw on that Quonset hut today. We pray, we confess, we wait, we believe, and while on the outside, nothing seems to have changed, God is at work “behind the scenes” or perhaps more appropriately, behind the “seen.” We observe no change, but change is happening, and when we finally see it, when the answer to our pray-ers becomes manifest, it happens suddenly. Not instantaneously (from the moment we pray) but suddenly.
So don’t lose heart! Don’t cast aside your hope, and having done all to stand, STAND! God IS at work in your life. Things are melting, things are moving, things are coming together. God is not waiting for the right moment; He is not withholding that which He promised. He is at work right now to bring it into manifest reality in your life and in due season we will reap if we faint not. Take a walk tomorrow if you can and watch and listen to the icicles falling and let them be an encouragement to you. Let them remind you that God is like the sun, relentlessly pouring His power into your life to change your circumstances…suddenly.
With You In Christ
Pastor Scott Millis
