The Holy Spirit spoke today in my communion time about the issue of prayers that have been hindered, delayed and where the answers have seemed so far away it hurts.Take heart because the Holy Spirit has an answer of peace for you concerning this issue.

It is time to revisit the prayers you have been praying for many years that seem to have been hindered and delayed. I know how awful it feels when we don’t receive an answer from the Lord on an important issue. Particularly when you are desperate to know whether the answer from the Lord for the prayer is a yes or no. This is particularly heartbreaking when the prayer requests are time sensitive, meaning you need to know what to do. However there seems to be no response from the Lord that gives you any hope or indication of time? 

Well in my communion time with the Holy Spirit He ministered to me from Luke.1:5-20 concerning the life of Zechariah and Elizabeth who had lived blamelessly before God yet had no child. Elizabeth the righteous lady was barren. Imagine the God lover and doer.The covenant daughter is barren and fruitless even though the promise of the Lord is to be fruitful and multiply in Genesis.1:22. 

How do you think this situation of being childless affected Elizabeth? What of all the rumors going around saying their righteousness was not authentic and there was some secret sin in their lives? We are to be empathetic as we look through scripture and understand that we are not the first to ever to face disappointments in our prayer life in a season which would then turn into a situation of glory beyond our imagination.

Well when the Angel Gabriel announces to Zechariah in Luke.1:13-18 that the prayer of many years before had been answered he found it very difficult to believe because so many years had gone by and now they were old. This is where the Holy Spirit wants us to walk in the place where no matter the delay or the hindrance we are still expecting that the Lord will fulfill His promise by bringing it into manifestation. This is because with the Lord nothing is impossible.

The Lord wanted His faithful servants to be a part of His Manuscript of Glory and Beauty by giving them a son to forerun Jesus. What an honor!

The delayed answer to that prayer was the position John had which no one else can ever have as the forerunner of Jesus and the only child born full of the Holy Spirit with a grand impactful life. The reward could only be given to faithful ones the Lord could trust to nurture and raise such a prophet who would walk as the Lord required. 

How about Daniel’s prayer in Daniel.10:12-15 which reads these words: Then he said to me, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia. If we look at what happened here Daniel’s prayer was answered the moment he started praying in heaven and his answer was hindered by the prince of Persia for 21days with Daniel left in the position not knowing what the Lord wanted him to do because he received no answer.

However Daniel kept in prayer and fasting throughout the 21days awaiting his answer which came on the 21st day. What we see here is that Daniel knew his covenant with the Lord and understood that the Lord would never withhold an answer to prayer from His servant so he waited in a position of readiness to receive his answer. This is the posture the Holy Spirit wants us to adopt because the Lord will never break His covenant of answering our prayers?

The prayer may be hindered from manifesting but not lost and if we can repent for leaving our prayer post we can recover the answer because it was only hindered not denied. There is a massive difference between the two. If you remove the hindrance you can have the answer. However if the answer was no you can’t experience what the Lord has denied you with a no.

The Holy Spirit made it perfectly clear that he wants to help us remove all the hindrances and delays to our prayers based on many different factors including unforgiveness, strife, pride, unwillingness to wait patiently on the Lord to understand the plan the Lord has for our lives to demonstrate a greater dimension of His glory.

Finally the Lord wants you to know that the answer to those prayers you are awaiting has a much further reaching impact than you know or can understand at this point in time and you are going to have to trust His process for you which will be rewarded with another wave of His glory manifesting in your life which will result in a greater expansion of the Kingdom of Jesus. 

Just remain reassured that the Lord has marked you out for an enormous story which He will tell in your life that will eclipse the long wait and give you a testimony that will speak about you eternally that will impact many for Jesus.

The reward will be that you are always remembered as being connected with God’s awesome power as an Ensign, “a banner and beacon of light that stands as a sign” in the work of the Lord that accomplishes marvels.

So be encouraged today as this silence of a positive answer to these prayers will turn out for your better, because the Lord has you covered under the shadow of His Almighty Wings in Jesus name.  Amen.