When I have unanswered prayers for deliverance

If you've been praying for freedom in a specific area and God hasn't answered that prayer yet, I want to challenge you to consider it kindness.

If God is good, then He's only capable of doing good things. He doesn't withhold answering our prayers because he's indifferent to our struggles.

Perhaps He hasn't answered your prayer for deliverance because he wants to heal what's at the root of your struggle.

Let's say you are someone who struggles with addiction. If the Lord takes away that addiction, then you are still left with the pain that contributed to those choices in the first place. What if underneath that addiction was the belief that you're worthless? You have deep wounds of rejection and feel like you've never measured up. Would it be in your best interest for God to take away the symptom and not heal your heart? Don't you think it's more loving and kind of him to help you grow in your understanding of what He says about you while giving you the grace, over time, to stop the addiction?

God knows it's for our good to be shaped more like him, to understand his heart in greater depths of intimacy, and to see ourselves as He sees us. The best place we can ever be is wrapped in his presence. To truly and deeply know His character, we must experience a place where we have to cling to it, even if we don't see it with our eyes.

We must also remember how God defines good and how we define it is often very different. If we're honest with ourselves, we often see God's goodness as answering our prayers the way we want Him to and with limited amounts of pain.

Our faith is only really exercised as authentic in the context of fire. Do I mean what I say about God, even when things get hard? Do I still think He's just when I experience an injustice?

If you haven't found freedom yet, perhaps you should spend some time asking God, "Reveal to me what you intend to heal."

Let's do the hard work, y'all.

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