After the Amen: Learning to live in the answer

 

It has been a long time since I have regularly written on this blog. I have had a big writing project on, and life has been very busy. After 13 years of walking through infertility, earlier in the year I gave birth to our miracle little boy! As you can imagine, life has changed quite a bit and I am only just starting to surface from the blur of the newborn days! In recent days God has been speaking to me and I have been meditating on what it means to live in your answered prayer. As I have been considering this I knew that the lessons I have been learning are too good not to share! So here are Five things I have learned about living in answered prayers. 

1. “I nearly forgot to say thank you”

David declares in Psalm 118:21: 

“I thank you for answering my prayer and giving me victory”

After praying for over a decade and after having a miscarriage and losing a precious baby just months before falling pregnant with our son, my pregnancy was understandably an anxious time and while we walked in fatih, we were so relieved when he was finally in our arms. 

In the days following the birth of our son Malachi and the embodiment of our answered prayers was with us, thankfulness came so easily, In fact I cried everyday for nearly three months in gratitude for what God had done. Throughout my pregnancy I listened to the song Gratitude daily and that attitude of gratitude continued, and still does to this day! 

However, it is so easy for life to take over. Caring for a new born baby certainly isn’t easy, and my recovery from my C section had a number of complications. We also have a beautiful daughter who came to us through the miracle of adoption who has complex physical and developmental difficulties, and that comes with its own challenges. The adjustment from one child to two was bigger than I expected and at times I find it really hard.

At times living in my answered prayer has been surprisingly difficult, lonely and messy, and at times that attitude of gratitude has fallen by the wayside. It reminds me of an old Salvation Army song that declares: 

‘I nearly forgot to say: Thank you! for flowers and thrushes and things, For daisies that dapple the meadow, and patterns on butterfly wings, For stars that shine, for winds that blow, the sun that melts the ice and snow; I nearly forgot to say: Thank you! for rainbows that follow the rain; But really I want to say: Thank you! again and again, and again!’ 

from Hosea by Gowans and Larsson

It is easy when you are sleep exhausted both mentally and physically, and changing the 40th nappy of the day to forget that you prayed for those nappies diligently for over a decade! In recent days, when those difficult moments come, I have tried to remember to say thank you because those difficult times are still an answer to prayer. 

2. An Answered prayer isn’t the finished picture!

One thing that I have learned about God through the years is that when God answers prayer, he does it in a way that only he can! Throughout my pregnancy and birth I saw so many amazing answers to prayer that I could write a book about it (and maybe one day I will!) However, life doesn't stop moving and that answered prayer doesn’t mean that I will never have another problem. Life is still hard, the enemy still attacks, wounds still hurt and there are still other prayers that remained unanswered. On days when I have felt overwhelmed, and I feel overwhelmed often, it is easy to feel guilty. I have found the enemy is well crafted at whispering in my ear and telling me that I am a rubbish mum, wife and christian because I am struggling. 

The truth is God is still at work, he doesn’t stop at one answered prayer, but the Holy spirit is with us every day and in every way, even in the difficult moments. God still has so much to teach us beyond our answered prayer and that is OK.

3. Dwell on it don’t Dwell in it! 

It is so important to Thank God for answered prayer and to remember what he has done. That is a biblical principle we see time and again in scripture. Psalm 77:11-12 says

"I will remember the works of the Lord;

Surely I will remember Your wonders of old.

I will also meditate on all Your work,

And talk of Your deeds."

Remembering what God has done is so good for many reasons it is something I am very passionate about. However one thing I have heard God say to me recently is ‘Dwell on it, don’t dwell in it.’

Sometimes when God moves in our life powerfully we can live in that miraculous answer to prayer and in doing so, fail to see the new things he is doing now, or might do in the future. We see this in the new testament with the reaction of many people to Jesus. For some their concentration was so much about what God had said and done in the past, that they failed to see God in person in front of them. 

While it is important to dwell on what God has done and remember it, we also need to make sure that we don’t dwell in it so much so that we neglect to see what God is doing today or simply fail to believe that he can answer prayer again in the future. 

This leads me to my next lesson

 

4. Let yesterday’s answer feed tomorrows Faith

In remembering the prayers that God has answered, and in living life grateful for the amazing things that God has done, it allows our faith to build and can deepen our relationship with God. 

It can be easy to be so distracted by living in our answered prayer that we drift along in our faith, but God has been teaching me that I need to allow what God has done to strengthen my faith and sharpen my devotion. I was reminded of this just this week. I had met with some good friends that I hadn’t seen since I gave birth and in retelling what had happened I didn't really retell the reality of the mighty answer to prayers we saw or  give God the glory for the amazing things he had done. I felt rebuked! 

We need to remind ourselves of what God has done in our lives by answering our prayers and we need to allow it to build our faith as we trust him to continue to move in our lives. I know that if God can heal me after over 12 years of infertility and grant the desires of my heart that he can answer other prayers that I have been praying for a long time. 

Finally 

5. Turn your answer into your testimony

This has been my favourite lesson that I have learned through my answered prayer! Over the years that I was waiting to grow my family and then to see the fulfilment of the promise that I would become pregnant naturally, one of the things that I did regularly in order to keep my eyes fixed on God, was to read/watch/consume testimonies of the things that he has done in other people’s lives. I love to hear about answered prayers and I have held closely to Revelation 19:10 which proclaimed: 

“The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy”

In listening to testimony of other people who have experienced answered prayers, I was declaring that God could and would do it again in my own life. 

While I understand that for some people, particularly if they are still waiting for similar prayers to be answered, it can be difficult to hear the celebration of answered prayers, I have learned the importance of sharing the testimony of what God has done in my life, and I have absolutely loved sharing my story with people who I meet. I am rarely able to have a conversation with someone without talking about Jesus and my gorgeous miracle son has given me plenty of opportunities for conversations! Even when I was on the operating table in the middle of a pretty scary emergency C section, I couldn’t help but share about my answered prayers and literally sang about the goodness of God!

I don’t know what answered prayers you have seen recently, or how you have been living in those answered prayers. Maybe you are still waiting for God to hear you and answer your prayers, but I hope that something of the lessons I have learned might spark something within you.