Once you pray a prayer, God starts working.
He was already working before you prayed to bring you to the place where you could believe to pray and then,
He keeps on working. He works all the way through until it is answered.
Some things can hinder our prayers, that is sin, darkness, hatred, unforgiveness, mistreatment of others.
Anything that is out of alignment with God’s goodness can hinder prayers.
But just because a prayer is taking a while does not mean sin is included.
Sometimes, He is working on the things that we cannot see or understand until He completes the answer.
If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: Psalm 66:18
Then, the good news:
But verily God hath heard me; He hath attended to the voice of my prayer.
Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me. Psalm 66:19-20
But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. John 5:17
We can see how God worked in all of the stories in the bible. Pick any one and you can look and see His work,
how He orchestrated events and the performed His will, how He prepared hearts and protected His people.
Let’s take a look at David. David was chosen to be the next King of Israel.
He was a young sheep-herder who had protected his sheep from a lion and a bear.
He had faith that God would help him when it came to Goliath. He trusted in God because God had been working.
And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father’s sheep,
and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock:
And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth:
and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, slew him.
Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them,
seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God.
David said moreover, The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear,
He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.
And Saul said unto David, Go, and the Lord be with thee. 1 Samuel 17:34-37
We know how that story ended. David slew Goliath and then became King. God worked all the way through. God was glorified and most humans who have been born since have heard of David and Goliath.
God is performed His word like He always does.
We have a great promise in Romans 8:28 that covers any and all situations:
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to His purpose.
We will learn and grow as we continue to read God’s word, realize the miracles He has wrought (past participle of work),
draw closer to Him and let Him help us to remain clean and pure in His sight.
Keep in mind in the most difficult of situations, and the ones hardest to trust Him in, that He is working.