Have you been praying for something? The answer to a particular question? The resolution to a problem? The fulfillment of a deep desire? If so, then you’re waiting for an answer to your prayer. And aren’t you glad that God is in the prayer-answering business? Now that doesn’t mean that you will get every little thing you ask for, exactly when you ask for it. Sometimes you have to be like a farmer planting a crop. You have to sow it, water it and wait for it to grow.

But instead of sowing a physical seed in the ground, you sow a spiritual one. This requires a four-step process:

1. Do Sow Your Seed
Sow the seed of love, faith, finances…whatever it is that you are believing for. For example, if you are believing for your financial debts to be paid, sow a financial gift to help ease someone else’s financial debt. If you are believing for a family of your own, then sow time into another family by offering to babysit or assist with some need in their home.

2. Do Stay Focused on the Word
After you’ve sown your seed, it’s time to keep your eyes and heart focused on what God’s Word says about it. Find scriptures relating to your need. This website is filled with articles and scriptures to help you stand for your answered prayer—everything from finances to healing to relationship issues and more.

3. Do Speak the Word
Water your seed by speaking the Word over it. The Word of God will go to work on your seed and give it the nourishment it needs to grow.

4. Do Continue to Stand Strong
When doubts come to your mind that say, This isn’t going to happen. I’ll never have my prayers answered, continue to stand. Continue to speak the Word over your seed. The Word of God will do two things during this time: continue to work on your seed and weed out the negative thoughts from your mind.

While you’re waiting for an answer to your prayer, don’t give up. Be diligent to patiently watch, wait, and use the Word as your water and cultivator. Soon, you’ll begin to see some movement. You’ll begin to see growth. And finally, you will receive your harvest—your answered prayer!

Don’t Dig Up Your Seed!
Genesis 8:22 in The Amplified Bible, Classic Edition, says, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” For the sake of illustration, separate those two words—seedtime and harvest—into three words…seed, time and harvest…because no harvest is immediate. It’s a process that takes time.

It takes your faith in the Word working on that seed, processing it. You put it into the ground and patiently wait. You don’t go dig it up to see if it’s still there. No, faith knows it’s still in the ground, and patience waits for it to come to maturity.

It’s going to take some time, but there’s going to be a harvest to your prayer if you’ll stay with it. In Jesus’ parable in Luke 8:15, He said of the man who sowed into good ground, “on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience” (KJV).

That may help you to be patient. It may help you realize that it’s just a matter of time before your harvest—your answer to prayer—comes. Your job, at this point, is to plant your seed into good ground, to keep it watered with the Word, to let the Word keep out the doubt, and then to patiently wait until it’s harvest time.

Don’t give up on your prayer! For whatever seed you have planted according to the Word, your harvest is coming!

Your answer to prayer is that the crop (your harvest!) will come exactly when it’s needed. God knows when the right time is…and when you need it, it will be there!