God is able to move with a speed beyond human comprehension. Yet the answers to our prayers often are delayed. Sometimes they are delayed until we are tempted to give up, to withdraw in retreat. At other times the answer is handed to us immediately.

Patience is one of the foundation stones of the Kingdom of God. Every true saint knows what it is to wait patiently for God—having done all, to stand.

The Scriptures teach that some delays are caused by the resistance of the enemy:

Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. (Daniel 10:12,13)

Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us. (I Thessalonians 2:18)

How wonderful to know our prayers are heard from the first day. But there may be spiritual warfare and so the coming of the messenger may be delayed.

Notice that the timing of the answer to this prayer was not crucial. It was not an emergency. When Daniel was in the lions' den the answer was immediate. No power can withstand God when one of His saints is in an emergency.

Other delays are occasioned by the fact that the time for the answer is not ripe. God may reveal to us what He has in mind for us but the fulfillment of the vision may be twenty or thirty years away. This is distressing to us but it is the way God works. We always must allow the Lord to interpret and fulfill in His own time and in His own manner the visions He gives.

Every word that God has spoken will be fulfilled in its proper time.

For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. (Habakkuk 2:3)

To be continued.