God answers prayer.
Let me carefully emphasize this again: God moves, heals, comforts and is our help in times of troubles. Because of this, we rightly rejoice when the answer to our prayer comes in the form of receiving what we requested.
It is more difficult though, when God does not do or provide what we hoped. Essentially, when he says, “No.” These situations are often difficult and sometimes doubt-producing. This is why we need to know the truth of what God’s Word teaches, so that when our hearts are awash in pain and our minds attacked with questions, we are not overcome.
In dark times, it is easy to fall into frustration or despair. We want to know why. Why didn’t God intervene? Why did he allow something awful to happen? … WHY?
Unfortunately, we often don’t get the answers to those questions on this side of eternity, and attempting to conjure answers ourselves leaves us dissatisfied.
God, however, is unchanging. He is also good and wise. Regardless of our situations, those truths don’t change, so God’s, “No” in our lives does not mean he doesn’t love us.
I want to pause here and correct a significant and dangerous misconception. There are some who teach and others who believe that God will always heal. That it is always his will to say, “Yes,” to his people in every situation. But while some verses may initially seem to suggest this, when separated from their context, this understanding ignores the wide scope of God’s Word. God has said, ”No” to many of his people throughout the pages of Scripture.
For instance, Paul tells us that he made a request of God three times, and that each time God told him, “No” (2 Cor. 12:8-10). This was a man through whom God did mighty miracles (Acts 19), and yet God did not answer his own, personal request.
Elijah, in a season of ministerial exhaustion and despair asks God to take him to Heaven (1 Kings 19). Jesus himself also prays that God would “pass this cup” hours before going to the cross (Luke 22:42). On each occasion and for varying reasons, God said, “No.”
Even David, a man after God’s own heart, was told no at least twice. The first is when he desired to build the temple for God and God stops his plans (2 Sam7). The second, and much more devastating “No”, occurs when David pleads for the life of his sick infant (2 Sam 12:16-23), and God doesn’t spare the baby’s life.
These are not easy examples. They range in levels of grief and disappointment, but they are all heavy, and we don’t have to pretend they aren’t. The truth remains though. While we are limited in our scope of foresight and perspective, God is not. This is why surrender and trust are the bedrock of faith. God is God. In all that comes, he alone is perfect and good.
In my own life, I have poured out hours of prayers in places of deep physical need and heart-longing requests for myself, and on behalf of others. Looking back now, with years accumulated in the rear view mirror, I’m thankful God didn’t say, “Yes” to some of what I asked for. There are other prayers and requests though, deep ones that live in the silent and secret chambers of my heart, that I still mourn and struggle to submit to what seems to be a continually divine, “No.”
Resting in God’s sovereignty is perhaps one of the hardest aspects of the Christian life. Add to that the reality of this world being so desperately broken and so much less than what God desired for his people in the beginning of humanity’s story.
But friends, take heart because this story is not yet over, and while that particular truth does not heal the scars of tearful seasons, it does anchor us in Christ, our source of hope. It also points us to his promise to return and make all things new.
And so we do a very unpleasant thing. We wait. But as we wait, let us also remind each other that God is good, all the time, and that all the time, he is good – even when his answer is, “No.”
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For further reading on the question of why God allows pain, you can read the past series, Heavy Hearts: A Christian Response to Suffering, Part 1.
