He Said No

I forgot that I had written this–exactly six months ago. Maybe some things are best served at the proper time. I hope that’s true of this “food for thought.”

I’m not one of those people who remembers the dates of every milestone in my life. I’m the mom who had to jot down my child’s birthdate before I called the doctor’s office. Otherwise an awkward silence ensued while some receptionist probably rolled her eyes.

But for some reason, I recalled today’s anniversary.

November 6 is a day for me to celebrate that God sometimes answers our prayers by saying no.

The details are blessedly fuzzy now, but the calendar date is not. At a point in my 20s, November 6 was a target date for a big decision I was weighing. For months I had prayed that if God wanted me to move in a certain direction that He would make it clear by Nov. 6.

I’m certainly not recommending that strategy as any kind of model. I just couldn’t think of another one. I wanted His will. I also knew what I wanted for His answer.

Nov. 6 of that year came and went with no word from God, no great epiphany, no more clarity than when I had started.

We humans are so good at rationalizing when we didn’t get the answer we wanted.

Instead of saying that God did NOT indicate it was the right direction, I decided maybe He didn’t like me boxing Him in with a “Reply By” deadline. So I kicked the can down the road.

A few months later, still pestering Him with the same tired question, I pulled up at a stoplight behind a car with a personalized tag. The plate read, N-O-V 6-T-H.” No joke.

I shrugged my shoulders and wondered what that could mean. Stubborn.

God didn’t badger me into submission. He just let me reach the same conclusion as His, much farther down the road.

Even more time would pass, though, before hindsight would confirm He had known more than I did and I could genuinely thank Him for not letting me have what I wanted at the time.

Sometimes our prayer requests are ridiculous, immature, and self-serving. Of course, like any parent worth his salt, God would say no.

It’s not always that simple, though. What about really good requests? Why hasn’t my friend found her way out of this addiction? Why can’t another conceive a child? Why can’t this one have some measure of relief from years of chronic pain? Why can’t his kingdom-minded venture succeed, and her special needs child find help?

I don’t know. That’s my best and honest answer. But how do I live in the tension?

Is God holding out on us? Hello Eve, I think you’ve heard this line before, and it wasn’t God talking.

Is God cruel? No, there’s not a cruel bone in His nature. A.W. Tozer in The Pursuit of Man noted that God is not the sum of His attributes as though they are the building blocks He is composed of. He doesn’t have power. He is power. So it’s not that God chooses to act with love, as though the act came with a side salad or not. He IS love.

The distinction is subtle but profound. Somehow, seeing Him more clearly affects the way I interpret His moves, especially when those moves are a mystery.

I might illustrate it this way.

At the beginning of this school year, I launched yet another daughter out of state and moved her into a rental house. Before the owner left us that evening, she took some cat food out back and explained that the neighbors had recently moved out and abandoned two cats. She planned to feed the cats until she could catch them and find homes.

In a whole other story, Cori and I had one of the cats in a basement room the next day.

With the landlord’s appreciation, I, the softie, bought a cat carrier at Walmart and buckled the sweet kitty in for the 8-hour solo drive home.

I placed her in the back seat on the passenger’s side so she could see me. (I didn’t realize at the time that her eyesight was limited.)

She cried. And cried.

“You’re ok.”

“You’re safe.”

I knew that. I knew my intentions were kind. I knew I was taking her to my own home where she would be loved and fed and doted on by a very surprised 11-year-old.

She didn’t know any of that.

She just wanted out of her cramped prison.

“I can’t let you out now.” (Visions of a cat escaping the car at a rest area.)

“It’s gonna be ok. You’ll like where we’re going. I promise.”

I sympathized with those pitiful cries. There was no way to explain “why” to a cat. As heartless as it may have appeared, I didn’t budge.

And it wasn’t long before I realized God was saying every line to me that I was saying to this bewildered cat.

“You’re ok. You’re safe. I know you don’t understand. No, I won’t change your circumstances right now. It’s gonna be ok. You’ll like where we’re going. I promise.”

I once knew a man whose global ministry coupled with genuine humility made him a spiritual giant in my eyes. Someone asked him if he could change one thing about how he had lived his life, what would he do differently?

His answer landed deeply. “I would have trusted Him more.”

If he would have trusted Him more…

Some things, like a cat, I just can’t know. The question becomes how well do I see the driver? How well do I know the driver? Can He be trusted?

I’d wager every saint in history would concur, “Oh yes, He is trustworthy. If anything, we would have trusted Him more.”

And so, sometimes like a brave daughter and sometimes like a myopic cat, I seek to trust the One who holds me in the mystery and promises that where we’re going is good.

And on Nov. 6 I will trust that even when He answers no, He, whose name is Love, knows what He is about.

We named her Elise, by the way. Fur Elise. And as you can see, she’s doing just fine.