Thanks for joining us today. This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the broadcast ministry of Pastor Rick Warren.

Today we continue in a series called Created to Dream. The six faces God uses to grow your faith.

In this series, Pastor Rick helps you recognize and understand the predictable patterns and processes God uses to strengthen your faith and develop your character

so you can live the truly extraordinary life he has planned for you.

In just a few moments, we're going to tell you about Pastor Rick's brand new book called Created to Dream.

This life-changing book will help you discover and live out the amazing dream God has just for you.

To find out more, go to PastorRick.com right now while you listen to today's broadcast or just text the word Daily to 800-600-600.

Here's Pastor Rick Warren with part one of a message called Delayed by Design.

Have you ever thought about why God waits to answer prayer? Why he delays? I mean, think about this. If God hears my prayer immediately and he is the power to answer immediately, why in the world does he delay?

That's part of phase three in the six phases of faith. Remember phase one is God gives you a dream. That's the dream phase for your life.

Phase two is decision. You've got to make the decision to go after the dream. Well, in this session, we're going to talk about phase three which is delay.

There's always an inevitable delay when you're following God in faith. There's always a waiting period.

In fact, dreams are never fulfilled instantly or immediately. There is a time lapse. When you think about it, Abraham had the dream of being the father of a great nation and he waited until he was 100 years old before he and Sarah even had their first son.

Noah had the dream of building an ark but it took him 120 years. That's a long wait. Joseph was going to be the ruler in Egypt yet he spent years in prison waiting, waiting, waiting.

David was anointed king as a young man but he didn't become king immediately. In fact, he was chased all around the country by Saul and Saul tried to kill him. There's always a delay period in the revelation of a dream.

Now, the classic story is of the children of Israel who were brought out of Egypt and then they wander around in the desert for 40 years before they go into the promised land.

Did you know it only takes about two weeks to walk between Egypt and Israel and it took these guys 40 years? What in the world were they doing in the wilderness for 40 years?

Well, the Bible says this in Exodus chapter 1317. When Pharaoh finally let the people go, God did not lead them along the shortest route to the promised land. That's an understatement.

God said that the people are faced with the battle. They might change their minds and return to Egypt. He knew they weren't ready for the promised lands. In other words, they were delayed by design.

God has ever done that in your life. You bet he has. God had them water around for 40 years. Why? Well, there are actually a couple of reasons.

First, God uses delays to prepare us. Now, that's true in your life too. The Israelites weren't prepared for war and God knew that if they went to war, they wouldn't be able to handle it. They weren't strong enough yet. They just come out of slavery.

So the delay was designed by God intentionally for his purpose. Every dream has delays and every dream has difficulties. And God uses these delays to prepare us for the difficulties that are we going to have ahead of us.

...