Okay, so, if you read my last article, you may have heard that I was not going to get to go to Israel on that archaeological trip. Well, like I warned you in that last article, God is weird and we do not always - well, okay, almost never - understand Him, but He is always good.

So, in staying with his character of complete unpredictability, God threw me a massive curveball this last week. In short: I am going to Israel now!

Okay, so you may be wondering how on earth this happened. I mean, I seemed pretty certain that this was a non-option. The door was shut. End of story. But God, in His classic way, decided to prove me wrong - and prove me right at the same time.

Essentially, against all odds and common sense logic, a scholarship that I assumed had long since passed me by ended up falling into my lap this last Friday. Completely out of the blue, I received an email saying that I was the recipient of the Biblical Archaeology Review's $1,500 scholarship! Now, keep in mind, BAR was supposed to award this scholarship and announce the winner over three weeks ago by this point. I just assumed they awarded it to another person and didn't have a policy of notifying the losers. But God, I guess, had other plans for me this time. Plans that are, admittedly, way cooler and more spectacular than the ones I make by myself.

But, anyway, this sort of thing - this waiting and praying and waiting some more only to give up and then be proven wrong - has happened to me multiple times. Honestly, probably more times than I would like. I mean, I love surprises, but I could go for a nice, easy transition once and a while, you know what I mean?

All this to say, I know a thing or two about how frustrating and maddening this type way of God answering prayer can be. But, if you can, suffer with me long enough for me to offer you a bit of hope if you are going through this.

Do you know the story of when God made the sun stand still? If you can't remember, it is in Joshua 10, when Joshua and the Israelite army were fighting against the Amorites. By all accounts, it looked like they were about to loose since the sun was setting so quickly. Then, Joshua went to God in prayer and asked him to make the sun stand still over them and give them more daylight to win the battle. And, long story short, God did and they won. Seriously, though, you should check out that whole chapter - it is one crazy story from start to finish.

And many people have used this story as a sort of guide to what miraculous things prayer can do and what miraculous things God can do. Essentially, the idea goes that, if God could do it for Joshua then, then God can answer whatever outrageous prayer you have for Him now. There is even a book I recently read called Sun Stand Still about this very thing.

But the thing about God is that, like my story with Israel and Him providing at the very last second, the sun doesn't always stand still at high noon. Sometimes, even after hours of shouting and crying out to God, the sun keeps on getting lower and lower in the sky. And sometimes it can get so low that the sun starts to set entirely. Maybe part of it has dipped below the horizon. But then, just as you have given up hope - just as you start to convince yourself that God has abandoned you - that He isn't strong enough to do it - the sun stops in its tracks.

Because, honestly, that is kind of how God rolls. He often doesn't answer our prayers within the timeline that we constructed. He waits until the very last second and then blesses us enormously.

But why? Why does God feel He has to wait this long? It can start to seem like God just likes to see us squirm and suffer. But, after all these times of God waiting until sunset to make the sun stop in my own life, I don't think this is the case. I have come to assume that, if God is making me wait, He has got to have a dang good reason for doing that. Sometimes it is to give me a different thing that what I prayed for, sometimes it was because my timing wasn't right, but most often, it is so I can grow in faith. I mean, if you think about it, faith can only go so far if you have had it easy; it is when the crap hits the fan but you choose to believe anyway that the real growth and maturity develops.

So, I guess, to pack this away into a little bite-sized lesson, don't stop praying for the sun to stop if you see it keep setting. Never give up hope. God will answer your prayer one way or another. You just have to wait a while sometimes. But it is always worth it.