A genuineness tested by fire

My son phoned from work at 7:30 this morning to tell me he had found his wallet. It was missing for two days and he had swung wildly between prayer and emotional pyrotechnics.

In this morning's phone call he said that when he went to bed last night he read his Bible and then prayed words to this effect:

"Father, you know where that wallet is. And you know I need it for the rent and parking ticket. I am putting the matter into your hands and refuse to stress about it anymore."

I wonder if God was waiting these two days for my son to come to this place of resting in Him:

"… I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me" (Psalm 131:2).

I read the following thoughts of Andrew Murray on the subject of prayer, in Herald of his Coming:

"Our great danger in this school of the answer delayed is the temptation to think that, after all, it may not be God's will to give us what we ask. If our prayer be according to God's word and under the leading of the Spirit, let us not give way to these fears. Let us learn to give God time. God needs time with us. If we give Him time, that is, time in the daily fellowship with Himself, for Him to exercise the full influence of His presence on us, and time day by day, in the course of our being kept waiting, for faith to prove its reality and to fill our whole being, He Himself will lead us from faith to vision. We shall see the glory of God."

In modern vernacular: The fingernail-biting lag between prayer request and answer is not at all empty time but full of activity. And that activity is either the continuing choice to trust God or the activity of indulging doubt and unbelief. It is a time of either proving faith genuine (1 Peter 1:7) or a time of forfeiting answer because of doubt and instability of faith (James 1:6-7).

I was happy for this little testing passed.