How MIGHT God answer your prayer?

Once we've committed an issue to the Lord, we’re supposed to sit back and spend our spiritual energies engaged in prayer and praise:  Prayer for peace and patience while we wait, praise for the answer (whatever it may be) that’s on its way. But that’s not always what we do, huh? If you’re like me, you spend truckloads of time looking around every spiritual corner, assessing each sign, interpreting every detail.

• “I wonder if this sermon is the Lord's way of preparing me for disappointment.”
• “Maybe this email is God trying to show me something.”
• “I know I prayed “right” about this request and so I think my Bible reading this morning must be a confirmation from the Lord.”
• “Maybe if the Lord doesn't give me what I asked for it’s because he needs to teach me something.

Now, while all of the above statements may very well be accurate assessments of how God will actually work, our job, after presenting a request is not to labor over how God MIGHT answer our prayer but instead to sit back and wait on him.  It’s in the waiting that you allow God to serve you.  And when he’s allowed to serve you, he gets the glory and you get the joy.  Is there a better spiritual combination?