Kindly Thwarted

How kindly God has thwarted me,
so that I might learn to glory in disappointments.
Robert Murray McCheyne

Since reading Kimi's post Prayer, Healing, and Trust, I have been planning to write about my own experiences in this area. Firstly, I would like to share a few scriptures that have impressed my heart in recent weeks as I've thought about this topic of faith when God does not answer our prayers the way we would like.

O LORD God of hosts,
How long will you be angry
Against the prayer of your people?
You have fed them with the bread of tears,
And given them tears to drink in great measure.
Psalm 80:4-5.

Return, O LORD! How long?
And have compassion on your servants.
Oh, satisfy us early with your mercy,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days!
Make us glad according to the days in which you have afflicted us,
The years in which we have seen evil.
Let your work appear to your servants,
And you glory to their children.
And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us.
And establish the work of our hands for us;
Yes, establish the work of our hands.
Psalm 90:13-17.

"For my name's sake I will defer my anger,
And for My praise I will restrain it from you,
So that I do not cut you off.
Behold I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of afflication.
For my own sake, for My own sake, I will do it;
For how should My name be profaned?
And I will not give My glory to another.
Isaiah 48:9-11.