Pride leads to people’s inability to see the hand of God in things and thus adds to people’s inability to recognize an answered prayer. What have you been praying for these past few weeks or months? Better health? Better days at work? Would you believe that God has been answering our prayers all along?
It’s just that for the human mind, an answered prayer that goes unnoticed is still categorized by the mind as an unanswered prayer.
During the wake of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, I prayed to The Lord to save my time from the 7-hour queue (to say our last goodbyes), when suddenly my mother-in-law appeared and expressed her desire to visit the wake with us. Because of her, we qualified to queue at the priority lane (for the elderlies), thus, cutting our 7-hour queue to a mere 15 minutes.
I see this as an answered prayer and I thank The Lord for it. Some people would tell me that it is purely coincidence; that there is a huge mathematical chance that my mother-in-law would want to travel from Malaysia and queue for 7 hours under the sun just to see Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s body. Man’s pride would always try to explain away God’s hand on things. Apparently it is in our fleshly nature to want to be in control of our world and reality, even if it means robbing our Creator of all the glory.
In our everyday lives, believers pray but it is also our pride that keeps us from seeing or acknowledging an answered prayer. This in turn triggers a vicious unconscious downward spiral of ”God has abandoned me” or “God is ignoring me” beliefs until we lose our drive to pray completely.
Not recognizing an answered prayer or simply not seeing God’s hand in our life will take away tons of opportunities for us to receive and actually materialize more blessings which He has been giving us.
We pray, we wait for the answers to come, and when it comes, let us not fail to recognize God’s hand and mercy towards us. From the food we eat to the great company of friends we have, from the favour we receive at work to the very beating of our hearts, all these are answered prayers that have materialized because of His love and grace towards us.
Being constantly conscious of answered prayers will place us in a healthier mind set and in a healthier energy for life. So, right here and right now, look around you and answer this: what do I have now that did not come from Him?