Do you question God’s love for you, personally? Do you say to yourself, ‘If God’s love is so great for me why am I going through such a difficult time? If God loves me why doesn’t he help and answer my prayers? Friends, do you see this is a wrong understanding of God’s love. God doesn’t demonstrate his love for us by immediately answering our every prayer. If every prayer we ever prayed were answered there’d be no such thing as faith and God would just be like a genie at our beck and call. Nowhere in scripture are we told that God is committed to our agenda… not until, that is, we are first committed to His.

Why, then, does it take God so long to do things? Well, because delayed answers to prayer and unanswered questions create trust. When you don’t know you have to trust the One who does, and that keeps us growing in faith. Sometimes you just have to faith it out until you can figure it out! But the fact is, it’s through our difficulties, pain and struggles that God tests us and refines us.

Think about the troubles you’ve faced. Have they refined your faith in God? Have they developed in you a perseverance and maturity? Have they given you a greater longing for the day when Jesus returns?