When God says no.

Date: 17 May 2009 12:11:40

Just back from church, and the man speaking was talking about the amazing way that he and others have seen God healing people. While it is encouraging to hear about God working, (at my church at the moment they seem to have a thing about healing,) nothing was said about how to deal with when God says no. Or even not yet. All that is dealt with is the yes, as if we should be expecting the yes. What about when we don’t.
This set me thinking about what we see in the bible. The first thing that came to mind is what if God always said yes. What if when Jesus had prayed take this cup away (Luke22:42) God had. What if the answer had been yes. I’m sure the disciples on that Friday and Saturday were saying why is the answer no, but without that no there wouldn’t have been the wonderful yes of Easter Sunday. But that still to come yes of Easter Sunday didn’t make the no of Maundy Thursday easier to deal with. For us looking back it makes it easier but at the time it didn’t help.
I’m sure that in Acts 8, when the church in Jerusalem was persecuted that they prayed for it to stop, and they had to struggle through the no as many were persecuted. We looking back can see the benefit of the gospel being spread as they scattered but that didn’t make it easier to live with the no then.
So having thought it through I can see that God will say no, sometimes we won’t understand why, something’s we may not understand ever, but what we need is God’s strength to live through the no now.