The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Unanswered Prayer: What Do You Do When God is Silent – 30-Day Devotional by Linda Agnew

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

Unanswered Prayer: What Do You Do When God is Silent - 30-Day Devotional by Linda Agnew The “weight” of waiting on God. Welcome to the elite club of waiting...on God! What do you do when God is silent? This devotional explores feelings, real feelings, and steps to take when very long periods of time have passed and your most intimate prayer requests remain unanswered by God. Unanswered Prayer - What Do You Do When God is Silent is an encouraging tool that will help you find peace and direction as you anxiously await your God-given answer to your most precious prayers. Linda offers insightful thoughts on faith, and holding on to faith, in an effort to bring a holistic understanding of the silence of God. This devotional will deepen your confidence and trust in God while you wait on His perfect timing for your answer. Prayer is a cycle – some have prayed and God has answered speedily or in a “reasonable” amount of time...perfect cycle. That is not everybody’s reality; for some the cycle is broken...we pray, no answer; this “broken” cycle is repeated over and over again. This devotional is for those of us who have prayed and waited on the Lord; waited a little longer, and many, many years and prayers later we are stillwaiting. We are not the faint of heart; we are seasoned veterans in this unanswered prayer game. In this book you will learn: Waiting on God is never in vain God is always in control It is never too late; God will answer (in His timing) He has not forgotten you or your unanswered prayer This is a must read for anyone who has been waiting on God and need to understand that His silence is never the end of the story - it is always too soon to give up. Through her words, Linda helps us to remember the joy of His blessings as we wait. This book is a powerful tool to help you continue to move forward, trust God, and wait for Him to speak into your life.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from the chrisvossshow.com, the chrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. We certainly appreciate you guys having me be here as always. Hey, we've been getting so many great reviews on the iTunes there.

Just wonderful five-star reviews. And we just want to thank all of you people who have been going on there and leaving five-star reviews. You have to go on iTunes. It's kind of a little pain in the butt. But going on there and leaving five-star reviews is just so wonderful. And I just sit at home at night and cry when I read them and think, people actually like me after 15 years.

I hope people do. Chris is a rousing host with lots of verb. It's great to his spontaneous banter and having a really good time while making time for serious discussion. Highly recommended to the show. Thanks to whoever that was. Lion G. It's funny.

I never know who some of the names are because they have some interesting usage names that they use. But if you get a chance, please go over to iTunes, give the show a pump, give it five star reviews over there and tell everybody how much you love us and all that. And if you don't like me, well, send an email and uh we'll discuss her email and maybe i can convince you that i'm likable darn it for the love of god please like me go to goodreads.com fortuneschrisfuss linkedin.com fortuneschrisfuss youtube.com fortuneschrisfuss and chrisfuss1 on tiktok uh she is the author of the newest book who joins us today that came out March 23, 2023,

called Unanswered Prayer. What do you do when God is silent? A 30-day devotional. Linda Agnew is on the show with us today talking about what she likes and she's into and what she wrote her latest book on. She is a native of Florence, Alabama. Her mother and most of her family still live there. Her father's deceased, and she's a retired special education teacher. She spent most of her years in Jacksonville, Florida, and now she lives in Madison, Alabama. She has five brothers and two sisters and does a lot of writing mainly for herself. All of her writings are in the Christian genre. Unanswered Prayer is her first published work,

and she enjoys spending time with her family and some traveling. You know, it's funny. No one ever puts in their bio, I don't enjoy spending time with their family. Why is that? Anyway, welcome to the show. How are you, Linda? I am wonderful.

How are you? There you go. I'm waiting for somebody to slide that one by me, slide in their bio. I don't like my family, my wife, my kids, or my dog, and whatever. So there you go. Welcome to the show. Give us your dot coms, wherever you want people to find you on the interwebs, please.

Well, I have a podcast at persistentinsilence.com. There you go. Or I have my email at stayalert78 at gmail.com. There you go. Or I have my email at stayalert78 at gmail.com. There you go. What is persistence? Give me that line again for your podcast. Persistent and silence. And silence.

What does that mean? That means that with my book, Unanswered Prayer, what do you do when God is silent? I have to be persistent in my prayers, and I think that we all have to be persistent. You know, we can pray. Many people say, oh, I prayed once God heard me. I say, wonderful. That's not my faith level, but I keep my prayers before God. I am persistent with them. There you go. Now, normally, if you're not hearing from God, you can reach him on iMessage

on the Apple format. He doesn't do Android because he's a jerk. That's true. That's true. I say that too now. So give us a 30,000 hour review of your book and what's inside. Okay. What it is, it just talks about different strategies you can take. I know everybody has their way of dealing with unanswered prayer. And when I wrote the book, I didn't start out to write a book. It was just a frustrating time in my life. And then a lot of things really unanswered prayers. And every morning God would give me a scripture and then he would give me things to write. So I wrote this and it comes really from my life. So unanswered prayer, when I tell in the day one, when I say set your day, that's exactly what I mean. I mean, we all have a lot of stuff that we're going through

and so many things that will bring us to our knees that are so bad in our life, but we have to take a moment to set the stage for our day. And when we do that, we have something to deal with. And that's the premise of it all, just to set your day, start out with something very positive from God, because his word is our treasure. And it's a gift from him. And every day, open your gift to see what he's giving you. There you go. Well, that's going to inspire a lot of people. What motivated you to want to write this book? What made you sit down and go, I need to write this book? Nothing. It just came.

Okay. It just came from so much frustration, so much unanswered prayer, and it didn't start out to be a book. I mean, even though I wrote day one, day two, day three, it never dawned on me that this might be a devotional. It took my friend dying in Jacksonville, leaving Jacksonville, moving to Alabama that I said, hmm, I got that back there. I need to do something with it. There you go. Give us a bit of Hero's Journey. What is your journey through life? People are always interested in people's stories and what gets them down the road. What were some of the things that happened in your life

that brought you to this point of writing the book and getting that done? I started out pretty much working in the finance industry, then quit that, and then went back to school, got a little bit of education, then started working with Procter & Gamble, and then went through all of that, left there, did a little bit of stuff on my own. And then I went back to school again, and then I started teaching. So I found this special education. I enjoy special education

because I liked working with children. As far as learning disabilities, I didn't so much want to work in the, you know, what I call the regular education because it was so interesting working with children and so fulfilling working with children with disabilities. I worked a lot of years with children with autism. So that way I've learned a lot of patience. I have a lot of patience, but that requires a lot of patience. So that's where my background is. But so many things in my life happen with unanswered prayer. It's like I've never been married. I don't have children. So you can already imagine what a couple of my prayers have been. Doesn't take a genius there, but a couple of those. And then you say, well, that's where I am.

There you go. And so what are some lessons people are going to find in the book or parts of the devotional that we can tease out? The thing that I really want people to understand is never give up. Never give up. You don't let anybody talk you out of anything that you put before God because they think it's been too long or they think it's just never going to happen to you. And this was, I struggled with this when I first did the book because I didn't have an answer for anybody, but God gave me an answer. And it's what's the time limit and who said it? So what does that mean? That means it doesn't, it may seem like a long time to other people, but you don't know what God does in the background to get you ready for that.

So what's the time limit? Don't let anybody say it's been too long because they can't set that time. There you go. And why is God silent sometimes? Is he busy? Is he, you know, watching, is he catching up on Netflix binging? You know, that is a question that I've asked God,

you know, because God says nothing's too hard for him. And I'll say, you know, God, I've asked you this a year ago i asked you this five years ago i believe so what is the problem and the hardest thing in the world to hear from god is nothing yeah i mean he leaves you he kind of goes shit he leaves you on that texting ghost ghosting he's he's, I am a sovereign God. He's a good God. He loves you.

And even in prayer, sometimes you start pleading with God. You start bargaining with God. If you do this, then I'll do that. If you do this, then I'll do that. And what do you hear? Nothing. Maybe God's problem is he needs to delegate more and hire some VAs, some virtual assistants. That's what we do on the show. We we have the philippines people and they're really good

and uh you know you delegate i mean that's really the key maybe that's just maybe this is a problem no i think his problem is we have to wait we can't help him out so you got to be you got to be ready for what god wants to do and maybe you're just not ready yet. Is that. That could be it. Or the situation is not, or maybe it's not in his will. You know, you pray and you pray and you pray and you ask God and nothing happens. Even a no Linda sometimes would be like,

yeah, that's what I need to hear. Let me focus on something else. You know, maybe Santa does the same thing to me. I asked for a Friday last year for Christmas and didn't get it. So I think, I think there's something going on. Maybe they're in cahoots with each other or something. Maybe you asked Santa for too much and didn't get it for too little.

Oh, that could be true too. That or, that or they've been sharing notes on what a bad boy I am. And that's why I'm not getting anything. So that's probably the truest element of it all. So, you know, do you find a lot of people struggle with why their prayers aren't being answered? And what are some of the aspects of the structure of that? I do. I find a lot of people, you know, everybody gets some of what they pray for. So

we're thankful for the victories and then everybody struggles with that. But what I try to tell people when it gets to the point, when you have that very, very special prayer that you've not gotten an answer to, and it hasn't been a day, it hasn't been a week, it hasn't been five years. It's been decades that you put this before God. So what do you do? You just remember the things that God has done for you. Remember the doors that he's opened. You know, you've everybody's had situations where it was like nothing's going to happen. It's absolutely impossible for this to change. And God changed it. So you remember things like that and that keeps you going. There you go. So maybe God just got busy and it just fell off his task list. You

have to keep reminding him? No. See, and that's what it says. Some people are like, okay, I prayed once and it's fine, but that's not me. I, I have a book of prayers that I pray based on scripture and I pray them often. Some people just, just go with, I did it one time and I compliment those people, you know, because they believe their faith is there. I have to keep asking. So, yeah, I mean, you talked about how some some things there's some prayers god's still working on for you i guess uh maybe a uh husband kids something like that well not kids at this age oh okay there's always still time you can order some off amazon i hear oh okay yeah i've got some i got some friends that might be able to hook you up.

They have teenagers right now, and they're willing to give them away. They're willing to share them at this stage of life. Send them back when they're 25 and thinking a little differently. Something, I don't know. The way it sounds, they don't want them back. So there might be, maybe they're just in that moment. So, you know, has your faith been tested over the years? Has this been a thing that's tested your faith?

Or what are some of the cathartic times you've gone through where it's kind of tested your faith? Maybe you feel other people are challenged by their faith. Well, my faith's been tested a lot. I went through this phase where I would watch people that don't even go to church, don't even believe in God, and they're so blessed. And then I got mad, and I quit going to church, and I said, nothing's happening for me. I quit going to church for years, and then I did my own thing. And then it was like, okay, I pray if I wanted to, but they're being blessed. I'm asking you for the same things that they have and nothing's moving. Nothing's

happening. What is so wrong with me? Went through that. So, but then I came back and changed my mind. What was some of the things that helped you overcome that? What was, how did you square that in your head? Let me tell you, I really squared that. I'm talking with my sister on the phone, and I'm like, I'm going back to church. My life should not be this hard. I'm single, no children. I'm dealing with all of these issues, money issues, this issue, that issue. But it shouldn't be this hard. Not from the standpoint

that when you go back to church, everything's easy. No, not from that standpoint, but from the standpoint that if I go back and if I start applying the word of God in my life, I'll have something to fight with. Everything does not defeat me. See what i'm saying and that's how i reconciled it i'm sorry so no uh as uh you build it as a devotional why did you make it a devotional a 30-day devotional uh book instead of just you know just writing about some of your thoughts on it i don't know it's just that's how it came to 30 days. And I do a lot of writing that's not like that, but this was the most that was pressed upon me to do it in this manner. I don't know why.

That's how it was. There you go. Maybe to help people with baby steps. You don't have time to read a 50-page book, but you got time to read five minutes. We should have had him on the show so we could ask him why he did that then, I guess. He's here. He's on the show.

Yes, he really is. We got him on mic. We got a couple of prayers here we need working on. We need to have some accountability. Yes. Wouldn't that be wonderful? That would be. That would be kind of funny. Shit.

We've had billionaires on the show and CEOs on the show, but if we could get God on the show, wow. That's going to go viral, I think. People are going to be like, and today we have God, the omnipotent, showing up on the Chris Voss show. Can you imagine how

many people? That would be, yeah, that people? Yeah, we get a download or two off that, I think. People will be like, God? And I don't know. We did have some homeless people that claimed to be God that wanted to come on the show, and we said no, maybe we screwed that up.

We should have, because they were saying the world was going to end or something, but I don't know what that's about. It probably not true there you go so now you you say that prayer is a cycle um what does that mean uh it clearly not a bicycle so right prayer is a cycle the normal cycle or our most desired cycle is we pray we God answers. That's the cycle. What if he doesn't answer though? We just buy your book and read the devotion, do the devotional? Well, you can do that too. But do you start that cycle again? You absolutely start that cycle again. And that's where I say you start it and then you pray, you wait, and then you say, God, I'm not hearing anything.

And then you pray and you wait. And then it just gets to the point that you say, okay, God, what am I supposed to do at this point? There you go. There you go. And so if he doesn't respond, then do you just, I mean, do you just write him off and go, hey, well, maybe this isn't the thing for me. Maybe it's not my time. Maybe I need to wait. You know, he's got my message. You know, it's kind of like when I text gals on Tinder, you know, you don't want to bug them because they'll just upset them.

So you just send a text. And if you don't answer back, you're like, well, maybe, you know. And then every now and then, you know, like out of the blue, there'll be like a text that comes back. You're like, whoa, that was weird. How'd that work? I don't know. And that's what I call answered prayer that you've been waiting for so long.

I don't give up. You know, it just could be a surprise. All of a sudden it happens, you know, and then, you know, God's not, God's not silent really and concerning so many things, but he may be silent concerning that one thing, you know, or those two things or three things, whatever it is that he hasn't answered you about, you know, but God is going to answer in some kind of way. You know, it may not be verbally. It's like, I know when I pray and I hear what I prayed, the exact words that I prayed, I hear it from somebody. So I said, God, I know you heard me. I know you heard me. And I know that nothing's too hard for you.

And he said, why can't I have this God? Why can't this happen in my life? And then it's still silence. And I know that is the most heartbreaking thing about silence and prayer. Yeah. You think he's listening. You know, he's listening. You know he's listening. You know he heard you, but to that one thing, you don't have an answer. Yeah. So there are so many scriptures that will take you to a place that say, okay, wait patiently for the Lord. I'm waiting patiently. I'm doing

that. Rejoice. I'm doing that. You know, everything's not happy. Everything's not wonderful, but choose to have some joy in you or, you know, you'll be consumed with so much, you know what I'm saying? There you go. You know, it's interesting because people pray and they want everything to be better. And then they don't understand why things aren't happening for them, why it isn't coming together. And, you know, it can be a challenge, I'm sure, because you're like, why does God hate me? And I know a lot of people sometimes when they, with God, they'll do bargaining. Yes. Like, hey, if you do this for me, I'll, I don't know, I'll do Lent or I'll, I don't know, I'll quit sinning so much.

Maybe half as much. Right. Something like that. So, and that's, that's, I address both of those. And I just, I'm just very honest with people. That's the very hard part of unanswered prayer. That's the hard part of unanswered prayer is no answer. Not even a no would suffice.

You know, no, Linda, it's not going to happen. That would suffice. Yeah. But I don't take it. I'm sorry. Even if it just tells me to blow off, eh? Like, quit bothering me. I'm busy.

I'm God. Yes, yes. I got things to do. I'm too busy. I got other people that are more important than you. Wait your turn. That would help me. But that's not God. Nobody's that are more important than you. Wait your turn. That would help me.

But that's not God. God, nobody's more important to God than you and what you need. But God, you know, sometimes we don't hear what we want to hear. And the worst thing we can do is to take matters into our own hands. And if you're familiar with the story of Sarah and Abraham, she took matters in her own hand. God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, but Sarah was old. Okay, I'm going to say advanced in years. I won't say she was old. She was about 80, advanced in years. And then how are you going to have a kid at that age? So she said, take my servant, and her servant got pregnant. But what happened

when her servant got pregnant? She treated her with disrespect. So she did what she wanted to do. She took the matters in her own hands. So what I've always known is whatever you do, there's going to be a consequence for it. So make sure when you do something like that, and you take matters into your own hand, God is too slow. He's not answering me. He's taken too long. He doesn't hear me. He's busy. I don't know whatever excuse you want to use, but be prepared to deal with the consequence of the situation that you created. You did it. Yes, you did it. Now, sometimes is that a reason

he's not giving you what you're praying for is because maybe you're sinning too much and being bad? Is that maybe why? I mean, and it really could be that. But God says to repent and he'll forget those sins and he's faithful to forgive you.

There you go. Note to self, stop all the sinning. What happens when you're not sinning and you have to do all of that god answers prayer he answered their prayer it was 25 years it wasn't overnight it was over like 25 years that he gave her a son by her husband from her body so that So that keeps you going when you look at stuff like that. That keeps you going. That keeps you saying, okay, God, you're faithful

to the promises that you've made. So that keeps you going. There you go. So any final thoughts we have on the book? Anything we missed that we didn't talk about to tease out to people

to pick it up? No, it's available on Amazon. But if you have unanswered prayer, you need some direction. You just need some encouragement. It just takes a few minutes per day. It takes a few minutes. And then even if you say something like, the Lord is my shepherd. You can start with, the Lord is my help today.

The Lord is my strength to get through this situation, to help me with my husband, to help me with my children, to help me on my job, even if it's to keep my mouth closed. You know what I'm saying? Something. So it just takes a few minutes a day. And that's how this is designed. It's not long. It's not hard to read. It's just a help to get you focused back on, not so much your unanswered prayer, but on the one that really can answer your prayer in a way that is going to be the best solution for you. There you go. There you go. Well, this has been very insightful and there's so much that people can learn. And maybe you'll help answer some people's prayers on why their prayers aren't being answered.

Wait, what? So there you go. There you go. Give us your.coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs as we go out? They can find me at stayalert78 at gmail.com. They can find me on persistentinsilence.com. There you go.

Any future books you're working on or works that people should know about? I'm looking at putting together just a combination of things that have helped me throughout the years. Some writings that I've done. I'm looking at putting those together. There you go. This should be very interesting to see.

We'll look forward to them. Thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. There you go. And thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, FortressCrispFoss, LinkedIn.com, FortressCrispFoss, YouTube.com, FortressCrispFoss, and all those crazy places we are on the internet.

Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. And that should have us out.