Since the eighties, I’ve heard a lot of messages about prayer. Good messages. Inspiring messages. Instructions about what to do between asking and receiving. Information about what to do between the promise and the blessing. How God is building character. That God is getting you prepared for the answer. We’re told to study Abraham, Joseph, and David. Great examples of promises and dreams fulfilled. This is all wonderful. This is all exciting. So encouraging.
But it’s not true for everyone.
It hasn’t been true for me.
There’s a difference between things that have not happened yet and things that aren’t ever going to happen.
I’ve never heard a message on the answer “no”. I know that it’s not popular, but it’s real.
Unauthorized Plot Twists
Sometimes the answer is no.
The child dies.
The cancer spreads.
You’re on dialysis.
The divorce is final.
The house is foreclosed.
The verdict is guilty.
The account is empty.
You’re laid off.
You’re kicked out.
You didn’t get accepted.
They married someone else.
What then? What do you do when the answer is “no”?
You have two choices: stay or leave?
My Dramatic Exit
The first time, I left. I left God. I was angry. I was hurt. I’d had enough. I thought we were tight. I thought we were close. He promised. I believed. I felt betrayed, lied to. I withdrew. I questioned His love for me. I wondered if I mattered to Him at all. I accused Him of hating me. I stopped praying, stopped reading my bible, stopped going to church. I wasn’t speaking to God. I would still speak about Him, but not to Him. This lasted for almost a year. Straight out sin! Departing from the living God.
At times, I found it hard to believe there was a God.
But that was the crazy in me—my error.
“Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29)
“Wherefore (as the Holy Spirit saith, Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known My ways. So I swear in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest.) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:7-13)
That was me. Just pure crazy.
Rebellious, selfish, deceived. I was wrong, through and through. I had grieved God, and I was not worthy to be called His daughter.
That was the first time.
I failed the first time. I failed the test. I made a dramatic exit. I let everyone know that God had failed me. God had not come through as I desired, so He—not I, was at fault.
What next? Where do you go from here?
I’m not the first to have left God on a technicality. Far too many before me have done the same. Waiting, praying, anticipating something that is obviously never going to happen. Facing “no”. Not now, not ever, no. We are admonished to wait on the Lord and to be of good courage. But how do we be of good courage when the wait is over, and the answer is no?
Most of us bolt. And some of us never come back.
The sad thing is that some bolt while continuing to sit in the pews. They are there, but they are not there. Numb. Others bolt in outright defiance. They are loud, forming or joining organizations in direct opposition to the faith. Militant.
Stuck in the Middle
And then there was me. Jaded.
I could not deny the existence of God. I had too much proof of His reality in my life. I couldn’t go forward because I was angry, and I couldn’t go backward because I knew the truth. I was stuck. Stuck between in and out. Pulling away but not letting go. God was always in my thoughts daily as I journaled. He would not leave me and I had not altogether left Him. As Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)
God would not let me go. I had praying friends, intercessors. I was wooed back to God. I was tired of being on the outside, tired of being stuck. It’d been almost a year when a word from the Lord came from one of them. She read Psalm 37:8 and told me emphatically that it was “evil” for me to purposefully withdraw from God because I was upset with Him. Wow! That got my attention. I wasn’t just having an extended pity party; I was actually being evil. While I was meditating on these things, another friend told me that I was grieving God. This was shocking since I didn’t even think He cared. But He did care. His “no” was not indifferent—it was sovereign.
Sovereign Awakenings
“And He went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him. And He said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee; take away this cup from Me: nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt.” (Mark 14:35-35)
I was convicted. I repented, and I started my journey back. It was hard. I was coming back to what I had left. Nothing had changed. I had not changed. The situation had not changed. I was just willing. That was almost 10 years ago.
Then four years ago, I had an opportunity to be tested again.
The second time, my head was in the game. I had come to myself. No, my situation didn’t change—it never changed. I changed.
Recalibrating
I understood that His ways were not my ways. That His thoughts were not my thoughts. That His ways and His thoughts were higher than my ways and my thoughts.
So when the child dies, the cancer spreads, the divorce is final, the house is foreclosed, the sentence is guilty, and the account is empty—He is still good. He is still God. He is still sovereign. He is still love.
I still hurt, I still cry, I still don’t understand. But I don’t lean unto my own understanding because it’s not about what I understand; it’s about what I know.
I know that God is good and His way is perfect.
I know that the ways of the Lord are right.
I know that the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
Journey’s End
I surrender my wisdom. I don’t question God’s goodness. I don’t question God’s love. I don’t question His judgment or His timing. I submit to His will, and I commit everything into His hands. Weeping and grieving, I don’t see how this could ever work out for my good. Brokenhearted and inconsolable, I don’t understand why He allowed this to happen. But I don’t leave. I stay—right there in His arms.
It’s not what I don’t know, but what I do know that sustains me when the answer is “no”.
The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us… – Deuteronomy 29:29
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