Have you ever had a “Suddenly?”

I can recall a few. They are like scenes in a movie.  Something happens —someone walks in, or paths serendipitously cross, and you meet that person who impacts your life and you are never the same.  Or, there are the kind where you have a revelation or spontaneous clarity, and you make a decision that completely changes the direction of your life forever.  These are pinnacle moments that never dull with time.

Sometimes, they are less fortuitous, and even devastating.  The world seems to stop and we are in freeze-frame, suspended in disbelief.   Like when JFK was shot, when planes hit the Twin Towers in New York City, when you receive a call that someone that you love has died unexpectedly.  

Suddenlies happen on both sides of the fence. 

When it comes to faith, we want to see God move like in the Red Sea parting, the walls of Jericho coming down, or someone brought back from the brink of death.   We pray and we pray, and we expect that what we are believing for will manifest before our eyes.  Sometimes, it does happen.  Miraculous, unexplainable, “God-incidences” that cause our faith to soar and the trumpets of praise to blare.

I wish I knew why other times — most times — it takes a bit longer.  The answers to our prayers take the longest route to reach us.  We pray and we pray and we wait and we wait… And seemingly, excruciatingly, there is nothing but silence. 

Hope deferred makes the heart sick.

I guess it’s not for us to know why.  We think, after witnessing the power of God move before,  that this is the way it will always happen.  We want to believe that we are “blessed and highly favored.”  But deep down, we walk around with doubts that He can really hear us.  We wonder if He truly cares about what burdens us.  We rationalize that there are so many others in need of Him, that He just must be busy.  

I can’t answer for God.  I can only tell you what I know about Him and how He has worked in my life.  He knows everything that happens.  All of it.  From the flat tire on the side of the road, to the broken relationship, to the bedside you sit at in ICU.  I See You… 

There are detours and mishaps and illnesses and breakdowns… God rearranges our steps and changes us, and it is often way, way down the road before we can understand why, if at all.

My kids had a book that we read over and over, and there was a page near the end that said “And he sat and he sat and he sat and he sat…”  There must have been a hundred “and he sat’s,” and I would read every single one, my voice in a cadence, building to find out what came next.  My kids were spellbound, expectant, waiting for that page to turn and we could say together “And then it happened…”

Prayers are like this, I think.  We have to go through saying them over and over… Not because God needs to hear them a certain number of times, but because our expectation needs growing, our dependence on Him needs strengthening.  There is a quieting, a purifying, that comes in our persistence.

Sometimes, our answer comes and it is not what we had hoped for.  We have seasons that are hard and lonely, and we know only that we must survive them and trust that He is still working things out.

He is.   

The Proverbs teach us to rely on God and not our own understanding.   In everything, to use wisdom, to not relent in doing good, to stand for what’s right, to sow seeds of faith and righteousness.  It is in doing these things that we sense His power, and we watch as the mountains before us are moved one pebble at a time.  

This is what we do while we wait.

It’s here we learn to trust Him for what comes next.  Spellbound, expectant — yes, sometimes weary.  Often times, discouraged.  But we keep waiting for the page to turn.

I don’t know what you are praying for, but I know that He hears you.  I am certain as I know He hears my own prayers in a season that has been especially long. 

In the waiting, we are being made ready.

There is a Suddenly that is coming, and soon you will be able to finally say “And then it happened…” 

Keep the faith, my friend. God is always at work. 

Whether your answer comes in an instant or at the end of an arduous season, it will come.

God’s timing is always perfect.

Mary Bryant is the author of "When He Walks Away… Hearing God When Your Husband Leaves Your Marriage,” a 5-Star Rated book available on Amazon