GOD'S NO

When God says no to my prayers, is he rejecting me?

Scripture To Consider:
"Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life."
Jonah 4:3

"Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself!" "Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me." And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness" Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me." "Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Big T's Thought To Ponder:
Have you ever prayed for something fervently... prayed with complete faith... then sat back and waited for God’s answer? Waited for the sovereign Creator of the universe to speak to your heart through the Holy Spirit. You waited…and waited…and waited, until one day you began wondering “Why has God not answered my prayers?” "I wish that God would just stop ignoring me and just answer already!" Many other thoughts are processed through our, minds, some of our own, some from the Holy Spirit and some from the destroyer, deceiver and thief.

Over the last two years and through many trials and BHAG's (Big Hairy Audacious Goals), God has been saying “no and wait" to me in response to a couple specific prayers that were very critical to hanging on and making it through the storms of life. I have taken great comfort and instruction through these last two years from examples God has given me of other prayers He did not grant and many that were granted in His perfect time and in complete alignment with His sovereign will for my life.

One of the most touching examples of prayers denied is the story of Abraham and Sarah. In the 15th chapter of Genesis, Abraham was promised a heir and a child from his own body. But they had no child because Sarah was barren and both were advanced in years.

Imagine the years of tearful requests that Sarah and Abraham made to the Lord. Try to feel the pain, frustration and loss of hope each month when they realized their prayers had been rejected again. As the months turned into years, the prayers must have grown more and more desperate, for each year as the couple grew older, they knew their chances of having a child grew dimmer.

And yet, after all these years, well past the age of having children, that is the request they continued to make of God. Until one day, Abraham, Sarah and Hagar grew tired of waiting on the Lords promise and so then strategized, devised and executed their own backup plan just in case God's didn't work out. In Genesis chapter 16; with Abraham at the ripe old age of 88 years old, Abraham had a son with Sarah's handmaid Hagar, which was the bi-product of not waiting on the Divine plan of God - obviously this has caused a few cultural and historical ripples over the past few thousand years an had a direct impact on our lives today!

At this point, you may be thinking that this story is a poor example of God’s rejecting a plea, for God granted their prayer in chapter 18, about a decade later with the birth of Isaac. The fact is, Abraham and Sarah almost certainly did not pray for God to wait to give them a child until their old age of 90 and 100 years old, they wanted a child right away and God’s answer to THAT prayer was “NO.”

Even though God had plans for them to ultimately have a son, Abraham and Sarah were unaware of those plans. Yet in the face of years of Divine denial, they were still individuals of faith—people who believed in praying for the desires of their heart and in a God who listened to those prayers. What are some lessons we can learn from this couple?

Like it or not, “no” is an answer, too! Although it is safe to assume that the couple was grieved at receiving this answer, it is apparent that they still viewed God as one attentive to their prayers. Just because God did not grant their prayer, they never gave up on praying. They may have wondered why He did not grant it, but they never confused a negative response for a lack of one. If they had, why would they have persisted in praying?

In fact, sometimes for our own good, or that of others, “no” is the only answer that a loving God would give. Probably all of us can think of prayers in the past which we are very grateful now that God did not grant. When Paul, for example, was discouraged by attempts to be relieved of a thorn of the flesh, as painful as it was, the insults... the distress... the persecution... the trials and troubles that we are all too familiar with in which Paul endured. He prayed to God that the thorn might leave him (2 Corinthians 12:8). God did not grant that prayer. Instead, God said "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness". Do you think Paul regretted God’s “no”?

Perhaps the “no” for which we should be most grateful, though, was in response to a prayer made in a garden one night. As a result of that “no”, one man died so all could live.

God's Truth & Promises:
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"
Matthew 7:7-11

"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."
Matthew 21:22

"And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it."
John 14:13-14

"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you."
John 15:7

"And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."
John 16:23-24

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him."
James 1:5

"Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him."
1 John 5:14-15

God's Time Not Ours... God's Will Not Ours... Ask, Trust and Wait...