Here are 4 common signs that mean God is preparing you for what you have been praying for.
1. If You Are Gaining a Greater Willingness to Serve God and Love Him Regardless If He Does or Does Not Give You What You Have Been Asking Him For, This Is a Good Sign He’s Preparing You to Receive It
Ironically, one of the things that most commonly block God’s blessings from coming into our lives is us wanting them too much and for bad reasons (James 4:3). Sometimes it’s just not God’s will to bless us with something that we are asking him for. So I’m not saying you are always wanting something too much or for bad reasons if God is withholding this blessing from you.
But I also do believe that God will withhold something he wants to give you if your heart is not in a place to rightly receive this blessing in a way that would bring more glory to him. One way you can know if you are truly seeking this blessing for the glory of God or for your own selfish pleasure is if you are truly willing to love God and serve him even if he says “no” to this prayer request of yours. Notice in Mark 7:26-30 what Jesus teaches us:
Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ And he said to her, ‘For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.’ And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.”
At first glance this seems so out of character for Jesus. His statement seems kind of rude even. But is not this often how it’s perceived in our lives too when our prayer request seems to be delayed? Don’t we sometimes think Jesus is just being mean when we don’t get what we asked for at first?
When the woman made her request to Jesus, he basically said no. I believe Jesus did this to give the woman the opportunity to express the faith that would be required for her to receive the blessing she sought. Because Jesus presenter her with this opportunity, she was then able to express her faith in him by responding with humility even though she basically received a no.
Notice what Jesus said after the woman humbly remained faithful by calling him “Lord” even though he told her no, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” If Jesus would not have said no to her at first, she would not have had the opportunity to express “this statement,” which is the statement that led to her blessing. It was because she said this statement that Jesus healed her daughter. So in a way, his original no was actually given to her so she could receive a yes. Without his first no she would not have been able to make her statement which was the gateway to the yes.
Likewise, God will often give you a no at first so you can respond in faith, because a response of faith is often what God is waiting for before he blesses you.
The condition of your heart is most clearly exposed when you don’t get what you want. It’s easy to be happy and grateful when God does everything you want. But how will you react if God says no? If you know you would run from God and be angry if he never answered this prayer request, that means your heart is not ready to receive it. But if you are truly willing to serve God and love him fully even if he never gives you the thing you are asking him for, this is a great sign you are being prepared to receive it.
2. If God Is Giving You the Supernatural Ability to Keep Faithfully Waiting for What You’ve Been Praying For, This Is a Sign He’s Preparing You to Receive It
As I talked about in the article titled 3 Signs God Is Telling You to Keep Waiting for the Blessing You Desire, there is a difference between “just waiting around for God to bless you” and “faithfully waiting for God to bless you.” When you are just waiting around to be blessed, you will want the prize without walking the biblical path outlined in Scripture to receive that prize. But when you are faithfully waiting to be blessed, you will also be walking in God’s ways laid out in the Bible. As James 1:22-25 explains:
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”
So yes, it is absolutely biblical to wait for the Lord to act on your behalf. Everything good comes from God, therefore we must wait for him to bless us because only he has the power to grant us the desires of our hearts. But we must not mistake biblical waiting with something that would contradict faithfully doing what the word of God tells us to do.
Therefore, God is often preparing you to receive what you have been asking for when you are faithfully waiting, meaning you are waiting to be blessed why also being a doer of the word rather than just a hearer only.
3. If God Is Giving You the Biblical Characteristics to Rightly Handle This Blessing, This Is Often a Sign the Lord Is Preparing You to Receive What You Have Been Asking For
The world wants God’s blessings but the world does not want to obey the commands that are required to receive those blessings. This is why the prosperity gospel is so dangerous. It cheapens what the Bible truly says because it only quotes the promises of God without the requirements of God.
Yes, everything good comes by grace, but God’s grace always has an effect on the human heart (1 Corinthians 15:10). If someone is not obeying God and being sanctified through the Spirit more and more into the image of Jesus Christ, they have not truly received God’s grace. Romans 8:28 is far too often quoted without Romans 8:29 along with it:
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”
We must not think we can receive the blessings of God without the character of Christ developing in us, because Christ in us is the primary blessing God is offering.
4. If God Is Giving You a Burden to Seek This Blessing, This Is Often a Sign the Lord Is Preparing You to Receive It
A biblical burden to seek the will of God is an intense blessing. It comes with pain but it always ends with pleasure. When God wants something for you, he will often put an unstoppable burden on your heart to pursue that blessing with a supernatural passion that comes not from you but from him.
Psalm 119:71-72 states, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.” God allows affliction so that we might learn his truth, and when we learn his truth we will begin to see that the greatest blessing God wants to give us is the blessing of knowing him.
Psalm 119:169-170 also says, “Let my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding according to your word! Let my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding according to your word! Let my plea come before you; deliver me according to your word.” God will often put a burden on your heart for this blessing so you will cry to the Lord with all your heart. And when you cry to the Lord for a biblical blessing and seek him with all your heart, that is often when you will receive what you seek.