When God says, "No."

 

Expectations

It is entirely possible that you have been through difficult situations in your life. Actually...Jesus promises us that we will go through difficulties. "In the world you will have tribulation," says Jesus in John 16:33. In our mad dash to get to the part of the verse that says, "But take heart; I have overcome the world," we forget to stop and pause that Jesus' statement about having trouble in this world was not just a passing phrase. It was a promise...and it is a promise that we often neglect to remember.

Paul's Thorn

This passage in 2 Corinthians is probably one of the most well-known, and widely preached passages within Paul's epistles. And, like many, I also derive great encouragement from being reminded that God's grace is sufficient and that when I am most dependent on God, He has the most opportunity to work by His might through me. But do we remember something very pointed about this passage?

God's answer to Paul's prayer was, "No."

No, the passage doesn't say, "And God answered, 'No, Paul. My Grace is sufficient." But, when we take a moment to look at what God did say we see that God did not say, "Yes," to Paul's request for the removal of the thorn. God gave Paul the thorn, of, if you're uncomfortable with that idea, He absolutely allowed the thorn to be given. However, when Paul prayed for it to be taken from him, God did not grant that beseeching. There was a purpose in the pain. There was an end that God had in mind that the thorn, albeit a tormenting presence, accomplished in Paul's life.

How often do we pray BELIEVING that God will answer? Specifically...how often do we pray believing that God will answer ACCORDING TO OUR PREFERENCES? More often than not, I would say. I mean, that is Biblical isn't it? James tells us that the one praying should, "ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wing (James 1:6)." So we SHOULD pray with an expectation that God would, or at the very least, COULD answer our prayer according to our hope.

The question I am bringing up is not, "Do we pray," but rather, "Do we pray rightly?" I whole-heartedly believe we should pray for the physical needs of those around us, or that we ourselves bear, but does our faith in God hinge on His willingness to heed our every beck and call? I have heard way too many stories of those who were once faithful, but are no more. People who turned away from the Lord because they could not reconcile the truth that God loved them with the reality of an unrealized prayer for a beloved family member who passed into eternity instead of experiencing miraculous healing.

"I don't understand! We prayed, and prayed, and prayed! WHY didn't God answer??"

The truth is that God did answer. His answer was, "No." Many pray with high expectations, and that we should, but we do not hold those expectations with humility, prepared to accept that God's will may not result in the fulfillment of our hopes expressed through our prayers for restoration or healing.

David's son

As I was studying the prayer of Paul above, I was reminder of another time when the prayers of a believer were not answered. Of all the people that have walked this life under the sun, I would have thought that Paul and David would have had their prayers answered. I mean, Paul was God's chosen one to take the Gospel to the Gentiles, and David was a man after God's own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). But even David, after praying fervently, heard God answer, "No."

In 2 Samuel 12, starting in verse 15, we learn how David's son, the offspring of his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, was afflicted with sickness. As a side note, we have to contend with the reality that the Bible tells us that, "the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and he became sick." The Lord not only allowed it, but the Bible tells us that the Lord afflicted the boy. We have to process this before we can truly pray the way David prays.

David prayed to God on behalf of the child. David fasted and prayed. David lay on the ground all night praying. David refused to get off the ground even when the elders of his house encouraged him up. Neither would David eat at their behest. David did this for SEVEN DAYS. Sadly...the majority of Christians today find it heart to pray for seven MINUTES, let alone seven DAYS. Still...David was fervent, sincere, persistent, even agonizing in his prayer to God to spare the boy.

Then God answered David's prayer: "No," and the child died.

The servants who had been attending to the boy had seen how David labored in prayer over the boy neglecting rest, neglecting food, and they were rightly fearful as to how David would respond when he found out the boy had died. David heard their mumbled concerns and knew that the child has passed. When they confirmed what he already knew, David did something that baffled his servants. He got up off the ground, prepared himself, and went to worship the Lord in the temple. After he returned home, he sat down at the table and ate food. "How could a man who was so grieved in prayer for the life of his child all of a sudden just get up, clean up, worship God, and then eat dinner??" It makes sense, right? This was precisely their question to their king. David's answer is, or should be, our example in praying:

"While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, 'Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child my live?' But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me."

This is what it looks like to pray with EXPECTATION but also with HUMILIATION: trusting that God CAN intervene and that He MAY choose to do so, but also prepared to ACCEPT God's will in the matter. This is a very tough place to get to in our prayer life. Although, however tough it is to push our faith in God to such a point, and to allow God to develop within us the roots of faith that go deep enough to weather such a storm, it is essential to every Christian to pray for such maturity. We do not want to be like the children Paul described in Ephesians 4 who are, "tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine." We want to be, "rooted and built up in [Christ] and established in the faith (Colossians 2:7)."

Jesus' cup

One more prayer where God clearly answered, "No," was in the garden, and the one praying was His own Son. Jesus prayed in the garden, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." Here in Matthew chapter 26, we see that Jesus clearly states His hopes in prayer. He does not want to endure the suffering of the cross, the scourging, the humiliation, the pain, the betrayal, and the eventual death that would come in the hours following his arrest. He was God in the flesh, after all, so He KNEW. But as Jesus was also fully man, He prayed to God a prayer that was surely born out of dread for the weight of what He would soon bear: the sins of the whole world. However, despite dreading the cup to come, he also prayed in humility for not His will to be done, but God's will...even if that meant taking the cup rather than it passing Him by.

God said, "No," to Jesus Christ. God said, "No," to David. God said, "No," to Paul.

Are we prepared to accept God's will in our lives even when the answer may be, "No"?

Can we, like David, if the answer is in fact, "No," arise, enter the house of the Lord, and worship Him? Then, after worshiping God, praising His name through the pain and grief of what the world would call an "unanswered prayer", return to our daily life still trusting that God is good, that He has a plan, and that He still has works prepared in advance for us to do?

I pray that we could. And when the time comes, I pray that we would.