Date: November 8, 2018 ()

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Do you know you have a loving God who cares so much about you? You are very special to God. You may not feel like you are special. You may have had so many bad things happen to you that you think “I do not feel special. I do not feel anything but drab.” I want to tell you that you are not an accident. You were intended to be born. In fact, it says all through the Bible, “I knew about you before you were born and I planned every day of your life.” You want to be in God’s plan for your life. Do not just stay in your plan. Do not stay in the devil’s plan for sure. Get in God’s plan. He does have a wonderful plan for you. He wants to answer your prayers. Many people wonder, “How do you know that God is answering your prayers? How do you know He wants to?

How does He answer prayers? God has about four or five ways He does. I am sure that he does it other ways that I do not know yet. There are some pretty basic ways He answers prayers. The first one is yes. He answers yes. That is why we pray about everything. Do you pray about everything? I try to pray about everything in my life. I pray about parking places. Somebody was being critical of me when I said I pray about parking places. I had a jail ministry at that time and it was downtown and it was hard to find a parking place. I was always running late. I would say, “Lord, help me to have a parking place.” Every week there would always be a parking place. I was just in a group of people and sometimes Christians can put you down or maybe they misunderstand. I said that I pray for parking places for the jail ministry. One person said, “I don’t think it is right to ask God about stuff like that. God is busy. He does not have time. I do not think you ought to do that.” I thought that I better not do it. The next week I went down to the jail and there was no parking place. I said, “Lord, I’m sorry. I want to ask You to help me find parking places. I do not care what anybody says.” The next week the parking places started up again.

God wants to answer your prayers. It is His delight to answer your prayers. He is not this mean God up there saying, “You do not make me happy. I do not like you.” It is not like that. He is not even the kind of God who says, “You have got to please Me. You have to be perfect. You cannot do anything wrong. If you mess up I am sure not going to answer your prayers.” God is not like that. Do not let people tell you that He is like that. He is not like that. Do not let the devil tell you that He is like that. The devil puts a lot of blame on God, and it is really him. He says things like: God is this, God is that, you cannot trust God, God is not going to help you, God is not going to answer your prayers. It is not true. He longs to answer your prayers. There are some conditions that make it easier for God to answer your prayers. We will talk about that, but He wants to say yes. The closer you walk with Him, the easier it is for Him to say yes. Why? It is because His desires become your desires. You know His Word. You pick up His Word. You study His Word and God loves to say yes. You understand what He wants

How does God answer prayer? He answers with lots of yeses if you are walking with Him, and sometimes it is no. We do not like those, do we? When you cannot trace His hand, you can always trust His heart. God taught me that when we were in such a difficult situation one time. My husband was so unhappy with his work. We wanted out and we kept praying and praying. It did not happen. We could not understand why it just seemed to be no. We would try this thing. It was no. Try this thing. No. Try this thing. No. We just could not understand what was going on. We were trying so hard to walk with the Lord. It was new to us. Martin Luther said that when you cannot trace His hand, you can always trust His heart. I put that on my refrigerator. I have a refrigerator walk with God. If you are a woman, you know exactly what I am talking about. Where do you spend most of your time when you are raising your children? Do you spend it in the library? Probably not; you would like to but you cannot. Where do you spend it? In the kitchen. I have lots of signs written on my cabinets with a Bible verse I want to learn or a Bible verse I want to remember. Sometimes I put something that I am praying about up there, when I want to be sure I keep praying about it because I want God to answer it. When you cannot trace His hand, you can always trust His heart. It helps you to wait. It helps you with a no

Can you praise God for a no if you get a no? Do you know God’s heart well enough to know that if He says no, He means no. It is okay because it is something good. If you like country music, there is a great song, “I Thank God For Unanswered Prayer.” It is a beautiful song. The man is talking about that he had a girlfriend and just loved her so much. She was everything he thought he wanted and the answer was no. She was not the one. Later in his life this great person came, just the best, much better. His song is about thanking God for his unanswered prayer. It takes a lot of faith to thank God for a no. It takes a lot of faith, but faith is what pleases God. It says in Hebrews, “It is impossible to please God without faith.” You have to learn how to have faith in praying

Let us look at another way He answers prayers. It is to wait. Sometimes God has to get things like He wants it and you have to wait. What would be an example of that? I have a lot of examples from my life and my friend’s lives and I hope you do not mind listening to them. My husband was so unhappy in his job situation. We just could not understand why God would not answer that prayer. It just got worse. His job situation got worse. It was hard on him, and hard on me because I did not want to see him hurt. We just had to wait and wait and wait. Sometimes God is talking to you and He can use other people. We had a teacher at the church that we were in his class. Every week this man would say, “When you are praying and want God to answer a prayer and it doesn’t seem like he is answering it, it is because he is working on the person on the other end. When He gets that right, then He can answer the prayer.” That kept us going for months. It was not like this was an easy thing and we just waited a week or two and we got the answer. It was a long time; months and months. That kept us going because that man would say that almost every week that we were in his class. When you are praying and God is not answering and you know it needs to happen, it is because God is working on the person on the other end. We would tell each other that and keep each other encouraged with that. Keep praying. Keep looking. One day somebody called us and said, “We are going to try one more time to get you up here to the Panhandle. There is a job. There is a business available.” My husband is a veterinarian. It was a veterinary practice. It was available. We called. We checked it out. It was God. The man had only just decided to sell his practice. We found out about it that quick and got it. We had to wait on the man, just like our teacher had been saying. We had to wait. Sometimes God has his own reasons for making you wait

Sometimes He wants to give you a higher yes. God’s no is always for a higher yes. Sometimes He wants to exceed what you asked for. That is what is happening to me right now, talking to you on a television show. I never really thought about having a television ministry. I knew I was supposed to go all over the world. I have already been doing that for about twelve years and that was enough for me. That was great. Thank you, Lord, I love it. The Lord spoke to me through a prophet, “You are going to be on TV.” I thought that was great. That was about five years ago; and I thought it might happen in 15-20 years. Some circumstances occurred last fall, and here I am on GLC talking to you. This show makes it possible for me to try to help you. I hope it is helping you. I am excited about doing it, and it has exceeded any expectation I had. It is way above. The Bible says that God wants to do that. Do you know that verse in Ephesians where it says that God wants to do more than you would ever think of, dream of, ask for and hope for? That is what He wants to do. That is the God you serve. Walk with that kind of God. Get to know that kind of God.

You know that you are really not going to ever experience all you can have with God, unless you just lay down all rights to yourself and to your life. If you will have the attitude in life and pray, “God, I will go anywhere, anytime, with anyone, I do not care what it is. I just want You to use me. I don’t care where it is.” You will be amazed at how God will answer that prayer. Amazed. Look, I am on TV. It is amazing. I am on about seven times a week. If you had said to me a year ago when I was praying, “God I want to be used, God I want you to send me where You want me.” If you had said to me, “Betty, one year from now you are going to be on TV many, many times every week talking to people all over the world.” I do not know what I would have thought. I think I would have been shocked. I am sure that I would have been stunned. I had no idea this was going to happen. God answered the prayer exceedingly above what I asked for

Sometimes God answers differently. You may be asking, “God, help me to get in medical school.” Everything falls apart, and you end up over here in a computer business. You may think, “That was not what I asked for.” However, you get over here and see this is so right for you. When you are praying about God’s will and what does God want you to do with your life, I tell people it is like a custom tailored suit. Our bodies are all made differently. We kind of look alike, but we are really not alike. Maybe one shoulder goes up and one shoulder goes down. Maybe one leg is a half inch longer than the other, maybe your hips hang differently, who knows? Maybe one style looks better on you than on somebody else. God’s plan for your life is like a custom tailored $5,000 suit. It only fits your body. God’s plan for your life only fits your life. When you are praying, “God, what is Your plan for my life? What do You want me to do? This is what I want to do, but what do You want me to do?” When God answers it, do not be surprised if it takes off in a completely different direction. For instance, you are here and God may move you there to do His will.

Sometimes God takes you North to get you South. Sometimes you are praying for an open door. “God, just open the door and give me a chance. Just give me a chance, Lord.” You are thinking it has got to be this big door that has to open. God says, “Would you go through this little door and do this little job that I have for you?” He checks your heart and you say, “Yes, Lord, I will. I will do anything you want me to do. You bet I will do that.” You go through that little door and all of a sudden it opens to a big door. You never know how God is going to answer that prayer. Someone once said that there was a person driving a car and Jesus was sitting over here. Jesus said to the person that was driving the car, “Stop the car a minute.” The person stopped the car. Jesus said, “Get out, go around and get in the back seat.” The person got out, went around and got in the back seat. Jesus got in the driver’s seat and said, “Now this is how it ought to be. Now let’s go.” That is the way it is with God’s will in your life and God’s answers to your prayers

Let us look at some examples of answers to prayer and how God wants you to pray. You know the verse about “Ask and it will be give unto you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.” What does that mean in terms of prayer? Should you just pray one time and then forget about it? The answer is no. There are stories in the Bible about a lady who went to an unjust judge and said, “You have to answer. You have to answer.” He said, “Leave me alone woman, you are driving me crazy. Leave me alone.” She said, “No, you have to answer. You have to answer.” God says you have to be like that when you pray. You will know in your heart when God wants you to be persistent. There may be a lot of issues that have to be resolved before He can answer your prayer. A lot of circumstances have to change. He says to you, “Knock and keep on knocking, do not give up.” There are other times that it is a lack of faith to do that. God just wants you to say, “Lord this is what I want and I trust You. I will wait until You do it.” That is part of walking with God. He will let you know. You will know in your heart. You will know in your spirit. This is what I need to do. You know how you hear people say to pray for open doors and closed doors. One time I was praying and said, “Lord, there is a closed door. The door is closed.” In my spirit I heard “then knock the door down.” I never heard God talk like that to me. You mean I have to just get in there and really go for it. I did it and it worked. There is a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that you have to develop. You can do it

What about when God says no? What are some examples of God saying no in the Bible? God loves the nation of Israel. God has chosen the Jews to be His special people. He watches out for them. He has a lot of promises and He has never gone back on those promises. In Deuteronomy 23, the enemy of Egypt was going to hire a man named Balaam to curse the Egyptians. Their enemies had said, “Hey God is with them, we have to do something. You are a powerful man. We want you to curse them and then they will be cursed.” Instead, Balaam went through a big problem. You should read that story. It is a wild story. It said, “They even tried to hire Balaam, the son of Beor, to curse you. But the Lord would not listen to Balaam. Instead, He turned the intended curse into a blessing for you because the Lord loves you.” There are people who do not like you and there are people who want to stop you. There are people who are jealous of you. They can even say bad things or word curses. They can say bad things just like this. Yet God says, “No, I am not going to let it happen. They love Me. They follow Me. They have a pure heart. I am turning it. They are My people.” You are God’s people. You are God’s. He turns it into a blessing

What about Job? Have you ever wondered about that? He did not have a clue what was going on, did he? He did not know that Satan had come and accused him to God and said,” Oh yes, sure he will trust you. You have not ever done anything but bless him. He has good kids. He is wealthy. He is respected. Of course he would serve you. Why don’t you let something happen to him and let us see what he will do?” Job did not know that was going on. He had no idea. There is nothing in the Bible that said he knew what was going on. He trusted God anyway. This is what I am talking about. When you do not know what is going on and you are not getting the answers to the prayers that you so desperately need, and you certainly cannot figure out what is going on in your life, just remember Job. He kept trusting God anyway. He lost everything. Maybe you have lost everything but Job would not back down. His wife said, “Why don’t you curse God and die?” He said, “No, even if He slays me I am going to trust Him.” You have to read the end of the book of Job. I have had people tell me that maybe it only lasted about nine months. He lost everything. In Job 42:12, you see the end of the story. He was more blessed at the end than he was when all of this started happening to him. It was because he kept the faith when he was getting no. He kept the faith when he did not know what was going on, when it did not look like God was answering his prayers. He kept the faith. You can too

Think about what happened to Jesus in the book of Matthew. He did not get a prayer answered. Did you ever thing about that? I bet you think every prayer Jesus prayed He got answered. He did not get this one answered. In Matthew 26, in the Garden of Gethsemane he said “Lord, let this cup pass from Me.” He did not want to die. He was a human. He may have been God, and He was God, but He was living life as a human. The crucifixion was the cruelest way a person could die at this time. He saw people being crucified all of the time. They were in agony. He did not want to do it and He said, “But not My will but Your will, God.” Do you pray that way? Whatever you are going through right now that is so difficult; can you say not my will? Be sure you know God’s will. God tells you what His will is in the Bible. Do not be one of those Christians who always says “if it be Thy will” when they pray. You can know what God’s will is. When you know His will, you can stand on it. Jesus knew that this is why He came. He came for this reason. He did not want to do it. It is going to hurt. It is going to be awful. Nevertheless God, if You are not going to let the cup pass from Me, then let Me do it. The Bible said that angels came and strengthened Him, and He did it

Having to wait for an answer may be the hardest thing, when you have to spend so much time waiting on God to do what He is going to do. God told me when I was 40 that my real ministry was not going to start until my mid-50s. How would you like to have to wait that long? Why can I not do it now? I am ready. Do you know what the Lord let me know? “You are not ready. You have a lot of changing, a lot of growing and a lot of maturing to be able to do what I want you to do.” He also let me know that there is a set time for what He wants to happen. You have to wait on His set time. There is even a verse in Psalms that says “Yea, the set time has come, the time to bless her.” I went and wrote my name in there. It actually says, “The set time to bless Israel has come.” I wrote Betty instead. I could tell the day that I read that, The Lord said “I am speaking to you. You have been waiting for the set time to come.” Right after that, things started to happen. Things changed

The waiting process is so hard, when you are waiting and waiting. Psalms 22:1-2 says, “Why don’t you help me?” Psalms 40:1 says, “I waited patiently for the Lord to help me.” I had to ask the Lord, “How do you wait patiently?” It is hard to be patient. Have you ever prayed, “Lord give me patience and do it quick.” My husband says that discipline is on the other side of every character quality that is good that you ever wanted. You have to be disciplined to get there. Psalms 40:1 says, “I waited patiently for the Lord to answer me.” When I said, “Lord, okay I am going to do it. How do I wait patiently?” Do you know what the Lord said? He said, “Find something else to do. Take your mind off of it.” I did and it was fine. I could wait. I even got to where I was happy waiting. One time I said, “I am so tired of waiting for a house.” I did not know if He was ever going to give me a house. “I like this one.” Do you know what happened? Right after that, I got the house. God does not ever want you to have any idols. Sometimes you have having to wait because something is too important to you. If it has more value to you than God, you have to wait.

Sometimes you just think that He is not listening. What am I doing wrong? He is not listening. Psalms 88:14 says, “Why do you hide from me?” When you are depressed, read the Psalms. They were written 4,500 years ago, and yet they could have been said today. Just read them, and you will find one that speaks to your heart. In Jeremiah 42-:7 it says, “It came to pass after a certain number of days.” My daddy said one time to me, “Betty, do not ever forget that the Bible says it came to pass. It does not say it came to stay.” When God is answering your prayers and he is taking a long time to do it, like for your child, you are just going to have to wait. Other people’s wills are involved. Other things are involved, especially with children. You ladies know what I am talking about. You can pray and pray and pray. I received a word from God that said, “I, God, love diligence in a praying mother.” That is one of those waiting prayers. If you are not praying for your child, who is praying for them? Nobody cares like you do. You have to pray. In Habakkuk 1:2 it says, “How long, how long? It is going to happen at the certain appointed time. I will not be late one day.” I was talking to a lady that was in jail and she said something very wise to me. She said, “God may not be early and He may not be late, but He will always be on time. It is His timing, not yours.” That is why you are waiting on those answers.
Another reason that it may seem that God is not answering your prayers is because God has many, many people involved. My brother said to me recently, “Betty, it is like dominos. God sets everybody up and what He wants to do. Then He moves to make it happen and it is over.”

God bless the people watching or reading this lesson. Answer their prayers, Lord. Teach them.

QUIET TIME QUESTIONS
1. Look up Ephesians 3:14-21. What does this tell us about God and prayer?
2. What are the ways God answers prayers?
3. What must you do to put yourself in a position for God to answer your prayers?
4. Why does God sometimes say no to your prayer?
5. Why does God have you wait before your prayer is answered?
6. What Scriptures are helpful for you while you wait for your prayers to be answered?

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