The Answer to Your Most Urgent Prayer (Part 1)

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.  King Solomon.

What do you need, and when do you need it?  This will determine the answer to your most urgent prayer.  I know.  I've experienced this over and over again.

Once I needed money urgently to pay my rent, urgently.  But when I sought help from government agencies, they consistently said the same thing:  To receive their aid, I had to be in "crisis."  They defined "crisis" as being on the verge of eviction, with eviction notice in hand.  This seemed backwards to me.  I didn't want to wait until  my landlord gave me an eviction notice to get aid.  Even if I got the rent money from the agency, what precedent would be set in this situation...even if I got a good paying job after the crisis?  Perhaps my landlord would be merciful if this was a one time event.  At any rate, the government would not help me until I needed the help, right then and there.  This somewhat encouraged me, even before I learned God's lesson of seasons.

I felt encouraged by the implication that I wasn't really in crisis at that moment.  I was trying to get my rent money before the rent was due, which would be in about three days.  I didn't foresee that my situation would be any different three days from the time I sought government assistance.  But they did.  Somehow, they thought that a money miracle could happen in those three days.  Somehow they thought that right up until I got an eviction notice, there was hope.  Perhaps they weren't thinking this way at all.  But it was implied.  And with this implication I saw God teach me a lesson.

In fact I did get the money before I even came close to eviction.  In fact, every time I've been in this situation, the same thing happens:

Right when I need something, God always provides it...not before, but also not after.

(Click here for part 2.)