"Heavenly Man" - Ch2 - (Un)Answered Prayers

While the account of how Brother Yun received a Bible is exciting, there is a detail in it that gives me pause – to say the least.  

Basically Yun prayed for a month for a Bible; nothing happened.  Then he was told (by the former pastor who told him to initially pray for a Bible) to weep and fast while praying.  Yun did this for 100 days (eating only a small bowl of rice at night – cf. the previous post and a hunger for God’s Word).  Then one night Yun had a vision, in which, he received a Bible; it became reality very early the next morning.  It seems miraculous to me.  At least it is outside of my personal realm of experience.  On one hand it is exciting and I praise God for it, yet on another hand I am unsettled by a detail in the account.     

An evangelist, who had suffered much (including 20 years in prison) for his faith, had a vision three months before Yun got his Bible.  In the vision this evangelist saw not only Brother Yun, but also the location of his parent’s house in their village - he was told to give his hidden Bible to Yun.  Having done some quick math it was easy to see that God answered Yun’s prayer…after about 10 days, not 100.  I.e., He gave a vision to this evangelist telling him what to do.  Yet due to the evangelist’s fear it took around 90 more days (equaling the 100 days Yun says it took) for God’s answer to Yun’s prayer to materialize.  I want to be clear, I am not faulting the evangelist; my goodness he had already spent 20 years in prison for serving God.  I can understand being a bit hesitant (but it is still disobedience).  Yet I am startled by God’s response time in contrast to “the final answer” being experienced. 

This leads me to again ponder prayer and our role in it.  I often utilize the end of chapter nine and beginning of chapter 10 in Matthew to illustrate this concept.  Jesus is concerned about those without a shepherd, He tells His disciples to pray for God to send out laborers into His harvest (Mt9:36-37), and then we see Jesus calling the 12 disciples…and then sending them out.  In other words, the disciples were the answer to their own prayer. 

Rolling all of this together I cannot help but wonder; how many times has God “answered” a prayer by telling someone to go…but the answer is delayed (or never arrives) because of a hesitant (disobedient) person?  Some may scoff at the idea.  Yet this flows not only out of Yun’s personal experience – but also the Bible.  

We are at war.  I know this, but events are happening around me that are reawakening me to this reality – again.  I pray this is the last time I need reawakened; I want to stay alert and engaged.  I also pray that I do not hinder God’s answer to the prayers of others…or my own.  Give us strength O Lord.