Over the past four years, we have prayed often for Eloise Taylor. We prayed for God to heal her – whether through medicine or supernaturally. We prayed that she and her family could be back home leading a normal family life.
Our Father has freed Eloise from suffering – by taking her home to him. He did not enable her to return home with her family.
Like us, Jesus prayed and didn’t get what he asked for. On the night before he died, he asked, please let me have another way, please let me not suffer for the sin of the world. But Jesus did not get what he asked for.
Why bother praying then? God our Father uses our prayers in his plans. And his plans will work out for the best – in the end. Our prayers do not change his plans. But our Father loves to answer our prayers when we ask for things that fit with his plans. It is like when a father intends to give his children a gift – but wants them to ask for it first (1 John 5:14). But when we ask for things that contradict his plans, his good plans, he does not give that.
Why didn’t God allow Eloise to recover health and return to her family? We do not know. We can trust he knows better than us. Ask him to give you more of that trust. And keep asking him – it is what children who trust their father do.
Joel Edwards