²⁴ Therefore I tell you, everything you pray and ask for—believe that you have received^[a] it and it will be yours. (Mark 11:24 CSB)

We want to read this passage and set our expectations on prayer on our very limited view of what we want to have happen.

With God, however, we need to expect the unexpected.

God may answer a prayer directly, but more often than not He answers it in ways we do not expect.

We spend an inordinate amount of time looking for a specific answer to prayer when God may see fit to answer it very differently. He does not need our interpretation of an answer, He needs our faithfulness to accept His answer.

Thus, we can often find ourselves on the back side of a situation looking back with greater clarity. Seeing how God acted upon our behalf in ways we could not have imagined.

We need to learn to expect the unexpected.