Many times God has answered prayers that we've missed.

Dr. Tony Evans says that happens when we limit our expectations of how we think he should respond.

God is just coming to you in a different way, and he's coming to you on the very problem that's messing with you.

This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of

Dr. Tony Evans. Even when you feel at the top of your game, you can count on hitting a slump

sooner or later. Let's join Dr. Evans as he talks about what to do when that happens.

If you soak a sponge in water and then put pressure on the sponge, what the sponge absorbed is what comes out.

Pressure reveals what has been taken in by the sponge.

If the sponge has not soaked in anything

and you apply pressure,

nothing's gonna come out because nothing was taken in.

When God wants to see whether we were really paying attention,

really were absorbing the truth that he's trying to communicate, he applies pressure.

Because pressure will reveal what is truly inside.

The pressure that God causes or allows to come into our lives are called trials.

Trials are adverse circumstances that God causes or allows in order to develop us spiritually

and increase our faith.

Throughout the life and ministry of Jesus, in his desire to develop his disciples,

he would allow them or put them in adverse situations because those adversities would

reveal whether they had taken in the lessons he was teaching.

In Chapter 6 of Mark, Jesus has just performed one of his great miracles with fish and barley loaves.

We're told in verse 44 of chapter 6 that he fed 5,000 men,

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