When God's Answers To Your Prayers Don’t Match Your Expectations

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. – Exodus 16:4

Have you ever prayed for something, only to have God answer you in a completely unexpected way? Maybe you had a picture in your head of what your answered prayer would look like, but the Lord seemed to have entirely different plans to answer that prayer.

I know I’ve been there…multiple times. And I’d venture to say you’ve been there, too.

I usually have a very clear idea of how I want God to answer my prayers. I have it all planned out – the method, the timeline, the outcome, all of it. But very rarely do I see things turn out the way I hoped they would.

However, what I’ve been learning over the years is that just because God answers our prayers differently than we expect Him to, that doesn’t mean we have to be disappointed.

This reminds me of the Israelites when they were wandering in the desert for 40 years before entering Promised Land. During a portion of their journey, God promised to rain down manna from heaven so that they wouldn’t go hungry.

Now, growing up, I was always taught that manna was a type of bread. So in my head, I pictured something similar to a big loaf of yummy sourdough. But this morning, I googled what manna looks like, and it is the furthest thing from a sourdough loaf. It honestly looks like one of the least appetizing things I’ve ever seen. I’m not even sure I can describe it well enough here to do it justice (I highly recommend you google it yourself), but it basically looks like disfigured crackers with knots on them. Like I said, not exactly appetizing.

So I can only imagine what the Israelites thought when they first saw the manna outside their tents. They were expecting bread from heaven, and this stuff did not look like bread. In fact, the word “manna” literally translates to say, “what is it?” which gives us a pretty good idea of the Israelites’ reaction to this heavenly food.

Nevertheless, even though the bread wasn’t what they expected, and even though they weren’t even sure exactly what it was, the Israelites took the manna and it sustained them and kept them from starving, just like the Lord promised.

As you think about this story, when was a time you were expecting bread (maybe a sourdough loaf) but the Lord sent manna instead? When was a time you were left asking “what is this?” when you were looking at how God answered your prayer?

Now, I want you to think about how God’s answer to your prayer sustained you. How did it meet your needs? How did God provide for you even if His answer didn’t match your expectations?

I think these are questions we all need to be asking ourselves on a regular basis as we contemplate God’s answers to our prayers. Because more often than not, I believe God is going to answer us differently than we expect Him to.

So if we choose to look for His faithfulness and provision in His answers instead of questioning them and focusing on how they don’t match what we hoped for, we’re going to be a lot better off. We’re going to grow in our trust in Him. We’re going to develop a stronger faith. And instead of defaulting to disappointment, we’re going to begin to expect for God to do immeasurably more than anything we could ever ask for or imagine.