This felt familiar… suspiciously familiar. I crept stealthily out of the shadows, keeping a slow and steady pace behind the stormtroopers marching in front of me… their nonchalant conversation and cavalier attitude indicated that they had NO idea I was sneaking up behind them. All was going according to plan… they reached an intersection and turned left, just as they always had before. A droid whizzed by them and disappeared into the background… the same way that it had on my last three failed attempts at this part of the level. Then, without any warning or provocation, I suddenly turned into a giant moose, eliminating the element of surprise I had worked so hard to achieve. WAIT… no, that never happened. And I am VERY glad it didn’t, as that would have been incredibly frustrating. Instead, the troopers performed their scripted behavior, I carefully trailed behind them, they exhibited the identical tendencies I had observed on my previous tries, and I was able to sneak through the area without being detected. Sure, it took me several tries to get the timing JUST right… but because the game has specific scripted responses built in to react to just about every possible decision I choose to make, once I memorized and mastered that pattern, I can play through this specific area flawlessly every single time. Does this make the game slightly predictable? I suppose, but it sure beats randomly turning into a moose at a very inopportune time. Honestly, I am pretty sure there’s never a really great time to turn into a moose, but I feel like a stealth mission has to be one of the worst.

As a gamer, I appreciate a certain amount of predictability in many aspects of the game. I certainly enjoy a well-crafted narrative turn and a few surprises from time to time… but when I am trying to craft a strategy that is contingent on specific criteria such as the routes that guards are walking or where enemies spawn, I prefer consistency over creativity. I mean, who wants to attempt a challenging and dangerous jump onto a distant landing spot that moves erratically or chooses to disappear without notice? How much fun would a game truly be if the AI that scripts the behaviors operated completely at random, resulting in friendly NPC’s becoming hostile without provocation or breaking the physics of the game at a whim so that every character could suddenly fly except for me? Even in the most robust rogue-like adventure with procedurally generated environments, there are certain characteristics within the game that we expect to operate the same way each time. If items that previously restored our health suddenly caused the opposite effect or our armor randomly turned into cheese when facing a difficult boss battle, we would probably cease appreciating the whimsical nature of that game pretty quickly. Even the most adventurous of us still enjoy a certain level of method behind the madness… and in our real world lives, that desire for stability and predictability is rarely fulfilled. And in an interesting twist, the answers to our prayers often seem just as chaotic, coming in ways that play FAR outside of the established “rules” of the game.

In my experience, the Lord rarely has the same answers to prayer for each of His children… while there are certainly specific guidelines such as the Ten Commandments that are pretty universal in their application, when it comes to the manner as well as the timing that our Father responds to our prayers, we tend to find that there is not a “one size fits all approach”. As someone who grew up with a traditional church upbringing, I found that seeming inconsistency problematic… I would see a group of women praying for a husband, but only one of the three would go on to find her “Mr. Right”. I would see two people suffering with identical illnesses and seeking healing, but only one would have a “praise report” to share the following week while the other continued in their painful struggle. Prayers would light up the sky at the end of every service, but it seemed like only a select few broke through to the other side while others hit an invisible wall or were simply absorbed into the silent vacuum of space. And in my personal experience, I found this exact same phenomenon occur… I would do ALL the “right” things, pray all the “right” prayers, seek answers from the Lord with all of my heart, only to feel like the Lord ran out of the “good candy” when I presented my trick-or-treat bag to Him. I would watch as others received the “good gifts” while I possessed an identical need, sought identical answers, and pursued Him in an identical manner… and when I looked in my bag, I got a rock. And as I searched the Scriptures, I discovered an interesting truth about the “God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Malachi 3:6 and Hebrews 13:8)… one that explains this seeming disparity in the way He answers His children’s prayers for “good gifts”.

Matthew 7:7-11 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

James 1:16-17  Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. 

Let’s get the obvious out of the way so we can fully explore this conundrum… James 4:2-3 starts us out by putting the spotlight firmly on us, stating that many of us do not have the things that we desire because we don’t ask God for them or because we are asking with the wrong intentions. We also understand from Matthew 6:33 that there is a prerequisite to answered prayer… we must seek the Lord in our lives FIRST for all these other things to be added to us. But let’s move past those foundational standards… even when we are asking in faith, with a pure heart focused solely on the Lord, the answers to our prayers STILL come slowly, late, or in a completely different manner than we would prefer. So… now what? Let’s look to three Godly women who each had a similar desire on their hearts and found the answer in three very different ways… the desire to have a child.

1 Samuel 1:1-7 Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim Zophim, of the mountains of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. And he had two wives: the name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. This man went up from his city yearly to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. Also the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there. And whenever the time came for Elkanah to make an offering, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, although the Lord had closed her womb. And her rival also provoked her severely, to make her miserable, because the Lord had closed her womb. So it was, year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, that she provoked her; therefore she wept and did not eat.

1 Samuel 1:10-11 And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head.”

In the first chapter of 1 Samuel, we find the story of Hannah, a God-fearing woman who desired to have a child but was barren. Year after year, she would make the bitter and painful pilgrimage to sacrifice to the Lord without an answer to her prayers… year after year she would endure the provocation of her adversary who had seemingly been blessed by the Lord with multiple children while Hannah still had none. This is certainly a prayer request I think many of us can relate to… a natural desire to experience a simple fulfillment in life that others seem to enjoy without even struggling to achieve. It could be a child, a job, healing in our body, or any other number of things that seem like such a small thing for the Lord to do on our behalf… but it fails to materialize. Don’t worry, we won’t leave Hannah hanging… but for just a moment let’s jump to the story of Sarah, one of her predecessors. In Genesis 17, we find the Lord promising to Abraham that their covenant would result in Abraham’s ninety-year-old wife Sarah finally giving birth to a child after decades of barrenness. For years Abraham and Sarah held that promise in their hearts without seeing it materialize, and as both of them moved past the normal and natural ages for childbirth, it seemed that this promise was going to go unfulfilled. What do these answers have in common? Hold on for just ONE more example… and then we will pull these strings together into a rope we can grab onto.

Luke 1:5-13 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years. So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.

Here we find another Godly yet barren woman, Elizabeth… a woman who was “advanced in age” and had a life that was defined by what she lacked (a child) instead of what she possessed (Luke 1:36). And in this circumstance, it is clear that even though all hope should have been gone, Zacharias was STILL praying for a child… this is confirmed by verse 13 when the angel says, “Your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son”. So, here we have three Godly women… all seeking the Lord for a “good gift”, all with prayers that went unanswered for years. What is the common thread that unites their stories together into a clearly defined picture of our unchanging Heavenly Father? THIS is the part we must take into account in our own prayers to the Lord… there wasn’t anything wrong with ANY of these women or what they were asking for. The Lord heard their cries and had an answer to each of their prayers locked, loaded, and ready to go… but the reason why His answer tarried is because while they were simply praying for a child, He was preparing a CHAMPION.

Hannah gave birth to Samuel, one of the mightiest and most influential prophets in the entire Bible. Samuel was a LITERAL kingmaker, anointing both Saul and his successor David. Sarah would give birth to Isaac, the child of promise who was the LITERAL father of the nation of Israel (Jacob). And Elizabeth? Well, her son was named the greatest prophet of all time by none other than Jesus Himself in Luke 7:28… her child was John the Baptist, the one chosen to prepare the way for Christ. These three women had more than an answer to their own prayers within what they were seeking… they carried the answer to the prayers of countless souls in the past, present, and the future in the child they would deliver. A simple and predictable answer was not in the cards for them because the Lord was going to use the answer to their prayers to do a NEW thing (Isaiah 43:19).

As we circle back to our original question, the truth is that our loving Father is absolutely consistent in how He answers the prayers of His children… not in the order they are received, nor in the manner they are requested, but in a way that serves the ENTIRE body of Christ, not just one local part of it. The Lord was not being cruel to Hannah, Sarah, or Elizabeth by answering their cries in what may have seemed like a delayed response…He was actually showing each of them a great honor by choosing them as His vessel to provide far more than what they were asking for.

Ephesians 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.

In my video games, I prefer predictability because it makes it “easier” for me to proceed. But “easy and predictable” also quickly becomes formulaic and boring… and the greatest games I have ever played are on that list because they challenged me in surprising ways that I didn’t anticipate. I adored Metal Gear Solid because every boss fight forced me to learn an entirely different technique to advance, from overcoming the Cyborg Ninja’s invisibility, evading Vulcan Raven’s massive battle tank, or the “third-wall breaking” Psycho Mantis fight requiring me to move my controller to port two because he could “read my controller” in port one. I fell in love with Ocarina of Time because every dungeon Link encountered was unique and required my mastery of an entirely new equipment item to advance through it. Taken separately, these events could seem inconsistent, unpredictable, and even downright strange. But within the context of the entire adventure, they made up an unforgettable experience that has yet to be replicated by the “lather, rinse, and repeat” gameplay of many of the games that have followed them. And the same is true of our answered prayers from the Lord… when seeking the Lord, we absolutely need to make sure that our requests are made in faith from a pure heart and a clear conscience (1 Timothy 1:5). But the Lord is not a vending machine… He is ALWAYS the same, but His responses to us will often vary in their timing as well as their style. Not because He is inconsistent or unfair, but because we don’t always fully understand what we are asking Him for (Matthew 20:22).

Here is my encouragement for you today… if you are seeking the Lord in faith for an answer to your prayers, DON’T give up simply because it hasn’t happened yet. Many of my deepest prayers were not answered for DECADES…. some still haven’t come to pass. And during that time, I have observed countless individuals receive the EXACT answers from God that I was seeking… and while their “cup was running over”, mine was still empty and barren. Like Hannah, I would reach out to Him in desperation without receiving so much as a “we are experiencing an unusually high call volume at this time” response. Like Sarah and Elizabeth, I felt myself growing older and reaching a point in which many of these prayers no longer seemed possible… and if I am being honest, there have been plenty of times I simply wanted to give up. But He Who is the same yesterday, today, and forever remains unchanging in His ability and desire to give good gifts to His children… at the perfect time (Habakkuk 2:3), when it will be of the greatest benefit to ALL of His children. Is He predictable? No… no, He is not. He is MORE than that… He is the predictably unpredictable Sovereign God who remains 100% true to His character while answering every one of our prayers in a manner that is uniquely crafted and timed for the child He is responding to. And when He delays, it is in THESE times that He is doing a NEW thing… far beyond what we could even think or ask Him for.

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