“And everyone who left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” Matthew 19:29 KJV

I believe that sometimes, sacrifices are necessary to realise the answer to our prayers. In context, the passage from which our key verse above was taken is the story of the rich ruler who asks Jesus what he must do to get eternal/everlasting life. Jesus emphasised the importance of obeying God’s law to which the rich young man responded he’s done from his youth up and was like, what’s next? Jesus then told him the requirements for the perfection he seemed to be seeking: sell off his possessions, give them to the poor (with the promise of treasure in heaven) and be a follower of Jesus. The young man didn’t like the sound of this and went away sorrowful. Turns out he really wasn’t willing to do all it took to attain the perfection he thought he wanted, and definitely needed! (Matthew 19:16-29)

So much can be gleaned from the story above, but my focus here is on sacrifice: the young man was sorrowful at what he had to give up, he didn’t hang around long enough to hear the blessings Jesus assures His followers would have: possessions way more than the rich young man had, the blessings of relationships and what more? ETERNAL LIFE (his initial request)! Sometimes, we must let go of some comforts to experience the answer to our prayers.

For example, you’ve been saving and asking God for a house. In response, God brings an unbelievable mortgage deal for a decent house your way for which your savings can cover the deposit. However, you’ll fail in your monthly payments with your current spending habits. Would you be willing to cut down on your purchase of the latest fashion, technology, entertainment (trust me, you wouldn’t die and the world wouldn’t end) etc to ensure you keep up? Would you monitor your expenses and re-prioritise so you don’t get too stretched and end up resenting the answer to what you prayed for, a house? In the nearest future, your children (if you don’t have any yet but are planning to) might not care whether during your younger years, you were in with the latest what not. However, I believe someday, they’ll probably appreciate the stability of growing up and building memories in a home they can return to in years to come and possibly, relive some precious, priceless moments they’ve had there (possibly with their children too). More so, there’s an associated peace of mind you experience when you don’t have to worry about rent amongst others.

Again, sometimes, the answers to our prayers require sacrifices (which could be a number of things in a number of ways) on our part.

God bless you.

© Lydia Ndagilaya for PneumaWord

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