A couple of days ago I got excited looking through my camera roll, 2 weeks to that date, I was sat in an apartment in London with my older cousin who had come over for a couple of days, I went to spend some time with her and she took care of me like a literal princess.

So I sat smiling at some of the pictures we took together and I got so excited and posted on my Instagram story, one of the pictures we took and captioned it ‘Can we have you back this Easter weekend pleaseee”

I was expecting her to reply with a cute ‘Aww’ and probably just say she’ll be back soon enough, but literally an hour later, I get a buzz of her reply, open my phone and see “Yes, I fly back tomorrow till the 28th”. Me thinking she was joking replied with “Yayyy”. And then she goes, ‘so you’ll come to London then?’ and me, really still thinking all of this is a joke reply sarcastically “Yesss, hit me up as soon as you get in”.

This was all fun and games till I opened her story the following day and behold, she really was back in London, and i’m thinking to myself “This girl wasn’t even joking”!.

At this point, I’m actually overwhelmed, thinking that I made a simple request without really expecting a response, not to talk of one in the affirmative and here I was, faced with the exact thing I asked for.

Because exams start soon, I could not even travel down to see her and I felt really bad because remember in banter I had said yess.

The Holy Spirit used this to teach me so clearly, He said that’s how we are when we pray to God sometimes, some of us, pray for praying sake, or pray actually not expecting Him to come through immediately and so when the answer even shows, we’re caught off-guard. He said that some of the delay our prayers experience is actually God giving us time to understand fully what it is we have asked for, time to weigh wisely our requests and see its possible effects in our lives.

It is not every time that delay is meaning God is building patience is us, sometimes, He’s simply waiting for us to grasp what we have asked for. I have a personal testimony of this and i’ll blog it one day, how I sat asking God why something happened and He actually told me “I gave you time to fully grasp this”, and truly He had so I understood better. A lot of people pray for things often and when it comes, the same object of tears and request, becomes the same object of complaint and burden and God is looking at us like ‘Yo, you asked for this’. God will never give us anything that will destroy us, by now we should know that. The bible also tells us expressly that ‘The blessing of God makes rich and adds no sorrow’ so when we find ourselves complaining about the same thing we’ve prayed to receive, imagine the slap it is in God’s face.

Praying in accordance to God’s will is so important, but also understanding that will is important. So what are you currently raising to God in prayer?

Have you thought about the effect it could have on your life? Have you made space or prepared to accommodate or receive this request?

If not, like me, when it arrives, you’ll be caught off guard and you’ll be left thinking, ‘wow, she really came back’. lol

The believer makes prayer in faith, meaning we expect God to come through in accordance to His will, so why do we seem shocked and even scared sometimes when exactly what we’ve asked for stands right before us?