Can You Be Thankful, when Someone Receives, What you are Waiting For?

If you are waiting for an answer to prayer, and you then see someone else receive the answer that you are waiting for yourself, then how do you react to that?

Are you pleased for them?
Or, is there any resentment in seeing, what you are seeking, asking for, longing for, go to someone else?

Can you be left with the feeling of, “When will it be my turn?”
It can be a normal natural response, when there is pain in the pot, and the relief appears to go to another. But, just because it is a normal natural response, is it a response that we should give any time or energy to?
If a response causes us pain and upset, would we be better off, if we could instead try to… “Take captive, every thought” ?

2 Corinthians 10:3-5
³ For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ⁴ The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. ⁵ We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

If the above has struck a chord with you, and you are still reading this, then thank you for staying with this.

If I’m going to be honest with you, I’m struggling to write the next bit.

I’ve heard, and do try to counsel myself, and my wife to follow a better line of thinking. For me, one of the obvious, go to scripture’s, is…

2 Corinthians 12:8-9
⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

The part that I focus on, more than anything, is, “My grace is sufficient for you”.

There can be times when it is a real choice to think this way, instead of going down the, “When will it be our time?” or the, “It’s just not Fair!” route.
There can be times, when I need to ask, “Lord, can we Please have Your Peace and Joy, while we wait.”
Then, so many times, the words, “My grace is sufficient for you” comes back to me.

Our God is With us, in the trials. He is not distant, and leaving us to get on with it. No, He is with us, helping and supporting us, in ways seen, and unseen by us.

It can sometimes be a tough choice to say “Thank you” to Our Lord God, in the trials, and to remember and know that, His Grace, is sufficient for us. But it is still a true and valid thing to do, even if, sometimes, it hurts.

It maybe a choice, to rejoice, if we see someone else recieving a blessing, that we’d like to be recieving, but it’s still a good choice to make.

When it comes down to it, do we want to be filled with thoughts of, “It’s not fair”, or “When will it be my turn”, and the like. Or would we rather be filled with thoughts of Thankfulness and rejoicing?
What we fill up with, tends to be what flows out of us.

Ephesians 3:16-21
¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

²⁰ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.