“You’re out of your mind!” they said. When she insisted, they decided, “It must be his angel.” Meanwhile, Peter continued knocking. When they finally opened the door and saw him, they were amazed. Acts 12:15-16 (NLT)
Peter was in prison. An angel came, spoke to him and led him through the halls of the jail to freedom. After he was outside, the angel disappeared. Peter, realizing what just happened, went to the home of some of the church members he knew were praying for his release.
As he knocked on the door and spoke, the servant girl got so excited she left him standing outside and ran to tell the group who were inside praying. They didn't believe her! They actually told her she was out of her mind.
How often do we do this? How often do we pray and ask God for something and then move on as if he's not going to answer our prayers? How often do we keep going about our business like nothing new is going to happen? Somehow we are going through the motions but missing the best part of prayer....the excitement of expectation!
The Bible is very clear that if we pray, God answers. Shouldn't we be expecting him to answer? Shouldn't we pray and look, waiting to see what he is going to do? When we were talking about this in a Bible Study group, one of the ladies used the analogy of waiting for a delivery (assume pizza here because it is her favorite food). If you make a call to have pizza delivered and you really want that pizza, you keep looking out the window for the driver. You get the plates out, the napkins, your drink. You prepare for the food and you wait expectantly, knowing it will arrive.
It should be the same in our hearts with God. When we pray, we should prepare for him to answer. Now he may not deliver the answer exactly as we worded it (which is a good thing) but he is working on an answer and we should be expectantly looking, preparing and waiting to see what it is.
How would our lives change if we were always looking for what God was doing? How exciting would it be to live each day watching for God to show up? Most of the time he is showing up but we miss what he's doing because we are so stuck in our mundane that we lose sight of his extraordinary.
Listen to my voice in the morning, LORD. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly. Psalm 5:3 (NLT)