Answered Prayers
Abbie C. Morrow Brown
Much that perplexes us in our Christian experience is but the answer to our prayers.
We pray for patience and God sends tribulation; for tribulation worketh patience. Rom. 5:3-5.
We pray for submission and God sends suffering; for we learn obedience by the things which we suffer. Heb. 5:8.
We pray for unselfishness and God gives us opportunities to sacrifice ourselves by thinking on the things of others, and by laying down our lives for the brethren. Phil. 2:4; Mat. 27:42; 1 John 3:16.
We pray for victory and the things of the world swoop down upon us in a storm of temptation; for this is the victory that over-cometh the world, even our faith. 1 John 5:4.
We pray for strength and humility and some messenger of Satan torments us until we lie in the dust crying for its removal. 2 Cor. 12:7.
We pray for union with Jesus and God severs natural ties, and lets our best friends misunderstand us and seem indifferent to us; and calls on us to walk "alone." Isa. 51:2; 63:3.
We pray for love and God sends peculiar suffering and puts us with apparently unlovely people, and lets them say things which rasp the nerves and lacerate the heart, for love suffereth long and is kind, love is not impolite, love is not provoked.
Love beareth all things believeth, hopeth and endureth, love never faileth. 1 Cor. 13:4-8.
We pray for likeness to Jesus and the answer is, "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction, Can thine heart endure or can thine hands be strong? Are ye able?" Isa. 48:1.0, Ezk. 22:14, Matt. 20:22.
And in the furnace He melts us into something of his own tenderness and gentleness and teaches us how to bear one another's burdens and how to live to make intercession for the sick and the sorrowful. Gal. 6:2, Heb. 7:25, Eph. 6:18.
Put this is only the transitory side. There is an everlasting recompense of praise and honor and glory at the revealing of Jesus Christ. 1 Pet. 1:17. For the momentary lightness of our tribulation, in a manner yet more and more excelling, is working out for us an age-abiding weight of glory; so long as we are not looking out for the visible things but for the invisible; for the visible things are for a season, whereas the invisible are age-abiding." 2 Cor. 4:17, 18. Rotherham.
