Don't relent; God will answer your prayer

There was a time when Jesus acidly berated his disciples because they began showing little faith. Jesus was going through problems with his critics and the disciples were downcast. They started asking questions. Yes, sometimes when faced with deep crises, we show little faith. We start questioning if our Savior is really there to deliver us from our torment. Many people have backtracked from their religious commitments because their faith has not been anchored on strong will to believe that problems are just ephemeral and our God is always there to deliver us from them. Grace Umutoni of Sahara in Kimihurura says that if it had not been the strong faith that she had, then her marriage of 12 years would have long ended. When she married her husband, they were a happy couple that enjoyed marital bliss at the beginning of their marriage, culminating in them having four children. However, her husband suddenly changed. He started drinking alcohol and coming home late. He started having extramarital affairs. He abandoned his family since he refused to provide for their basic needs. But it’s his affairs that really pierced her heart and she contemplated divorce. But as a Christian, despite all these torment, she continued praying. She prayed to God that her beloved husband could change his ways. She prayed that her children survive the torture that threatened to tear the family apart. “I had this strong faith and belief that God would answer my prayers and my husband return to the person who joyously led me down the aisle. Each day I prayed because my strong faith never wavered. Then God one day answered my prayers. My husband came home one day and apologised for all the pains he had caused me and the family,” she says. Today, the couple is back to their marital bliss and seeing them heading to church is a clear testimony that indeed, faith can move mountains. There are many people outside there who are going through similar problems, if not even worse, as Umutoni’s. There is now a person who is now gravely sick with terminal illness and his or her wish now is for God to do the necessary by the means of death. There’s a person out there who has just lost his job and his world has crushed. There’s a person out there who has just lost her only child and the torture in her heart is conspicuous by the endless tears she’s shedding and grief she’s going through. All these need strong faith. When the biblical Job was going through painful torture the whole of his body, one thing that’s admirable out of his narrative is that never for one day did he lose his faith and belief in God. He stoically endured his pain up to the end, and God eventually relieved him of his suffering. “The story of Job is a clear indication that when we believe, God is not going to make us suffer forever,” says Epaphrodite Uwingabiye who lost her husband in their four years of marriage, leaving her with two young children to take care of. “I have strong faith that God is going to make us go through the pain that the loss of my husband occasioned,” she adds. She says that she prays every day so that her children get the best in life they could have provided when the family unit was intact. Problems abound in their legion as long as you are alive. Some of them are to test our faith, just like God did to Job. But it behooves us not to relent on our faith because God has a way of rewarding us abundantly after a period of painful darkness in our lives.

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Don't relent; God will answer your prayer