Deep down, I think that I have always been a skeptic. I have always doubted that God answers the prayers of His people. Not that He does not hear my prayers, but that He will answer them. With my mouth I have professed the truth, and may have even believed it at times, but most often my heart has fallen prey to skepticism.

It has been easy for me to imagine a God who hears my prayers, but it has been difficult for me to understand a God who answers my prayers.

For here I am, tasting of the fruit of many years worth of prayers, but did not have eyes to see it smack in front of my face. In the middle of a season of pain and sadness, I questioned my faith, being quick to forget that I had actually prayed that this time might come.

I have prayed for the fires of refinement, to be tested and tried until I am proven true. I have asked for what is fleshly to be stripped from me, and to be broken before the Lord, that I may taste of His goodness and be made into a more faithful servant. I have prayed that myself would be lost, that I could feast full on Christ. I have pages and pages of proof of these pleas for my sanctification and testing.

These are prayers that I have prayed since a young teenager, meaning them with all sincerity. Yet, because they did not come in the way by which I had expected, my vision to see them was clouded. In some ways, I did not expect them to come at all in my doubt of a response.

Now here I am, after two years of deep spiritual difficulty, and I am just beginning to understand that this season is an answer to my prayers. I prayed for this pain, but when it came I was too distracted to see it for what is was–The Father being faithful to His child.

There is still mercy and response for the skeptic, the child who does not see what is being done for their own good. The Lord has not overlooked or left unanswered even the most unfaithful of His own.

“For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.”

 – Psalm 33:4