My sister got an e-mail from me last week.  That’s not very unusual, as we exchange messages back and forth almost daily.  But there was something pretty weird about this one.

I sent it to her two years ago.

Two years!  It said I sent it last Wednesday, but I didn’t.  It was a picture of a dress I was thinking about buying for my brother’s wedding.  He got married in March…of 2009.  No wonder my sister was a little confused when she got it. 

I want answers!  I want to know where this message was and why it was hiding and what prompted it to show up last week out of the blue!  The frustrating part is that I’ll probably never find out. 

Prayers can seem like that sometimes.  We send out a message to God, and then it feels like it disappears.  Where did it go?  Why isn’t God responding?  Did the message get lost?  Did it go in some heavenly spam folder?  (Just had to put that one in, even though I am quite sure something like that does not actually exist.)

Silly, I know.  Of course God gets our messages.  It’s a promise.  They don’t get lost.  They don’t get ignored. They don’t get hidden.  God knows exactly where they are and when and how He’ll respond.  If an answer shows up “out of the blue” years from now, it’s not because God suddenly found a lost file.  It’s because He intended on answering it in His time, not ours.

I am so glad my God is infinitely more reliable than my e-mail!

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”.  Daniel 10:12

It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear. Isaiah 65:24

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us! John 5:14

He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him.  Psalm 91:15