Blessings Unrecognized

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 30, 1906

Blessings Unrecognized

An unanswered prayer is no proof of an unhearing God. There may be reasons in the great purposes of our Heavenly Father why a petition may fail of a direct answer. The creature may err, not understanding the will of God; but the Creator can not err. As many a child of God has looked back over his life, he has seen where the goodness and benign wisdom of God has been manifested in withholding the things asked for. But if the direct answer to the petition has been withheld, we believe that in some way there will come a blessing because of it, and that no earnest, faithful prayer is ever lost to the suppliant. It may not be my way, it may not be thy way, but yet in his own way the answer will come. It may be years in coming; it may come in some wholly unexpected way, through some channel we never dreamed of, and which at the time of the prayer we knew nothing of; but it will come to us with blessing. Indeed, we in our obtuseness may be living in the very atmosphere of answered prayer and not be aware of it. If the answer does not come in the way we look for it, let us look around and see if the flower that we longed for is not blooming elsewhere, or if our life at some angle does not touch God more intimately than ever before. We may look for the answer in a tally-ho, but it may come in the form of some poor beggar on the street. — United Presbyterian.