When God Says “No”

It’s taken me six months to write this post. Even now, I’m not quite sure how to start it. You see, six months ago my dad lost his battle with heart disease. The doctors assured us the risk of surgery was low. We were nervous, scared even, but they said this was his best chance because his heart was so sick . Two or three different times within a 5 day period I got my knees or face in a hospital waiting room to petition God to carry my dad through that particular moment of uncertainty. Well, uncertainty for us. Immediately after saying our last goodbyes to him, this man I was not ready to say goodbye to, I couldn’t help but wonder why God had said no to my heart wrenched request. Looking back, however, none of what took us by surprise, or should I say shock, was a surprise for my heavenly Father. There were no moments of uncertainty for Him.

Sometimes when we think, in our humanness, that God is saying no to us He is really saying, “aww, but my child, just wait….I have something better.” He isn’t really telling us no. He just has a better plan. And sometimes His answers are not about us at all but about the true needs of another, the needs only He can fully see and truly meet.

It’s so easy for us to make our requests known to God and be hurt and confused because we’re not seeing it answered in our time, according to our will. After all, His Word tells us that if we delight ourselves in Him that He will give us the desires of our heart (Psalm 37:4). However, 1 John 5:14 makes it more clear, telling us “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according His will, He hears us (emphasis mine).” In Isaiah 55:8-9 we read “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” And in Jeremiah 29:11 He tells us “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

He’s had me studying the book of Job lately. Not sure why. I don’t see myself as a modern-day version of Job, by any means. I will tell you, though, that 2023 has been pretty rough so far. Grieving my father is not how I had planned to spend it. In fact, we’d made other plans, plans that were much happier and made more sense to us. We were talking about when we wanted to go visit both of my parents this summer because we knew they were getting older so we wanted to make sure we made the most of the time. I thought God was calling me home (to my home-state, to my parents). What I didn’t know is that God was actually calling my dad Home, into His own presence.

We can say, “but I prayed so hard! I don’t understand why God said no.” But did He really say no? Or did He have a better plan? We might not even get to see His better plan unfold, but we can trust His plan is better simply because He tells us that it is. In Matthew 7:11, Jesus asked us to consider that if we imperfect humans know how to give good gifts to our own children how much better will the gifts be that our heavenly Father gives to us! James 1:17 tells us that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” He is a good Father so He gives good gifts. He made the ultimate provision for our eternal security and adopts us as His own sons and daughters. Because of that truth I can know that His plan was better than my own. His “no, or wait because I have something better” was actually a good gift, a better plan.

If God had seen my father’s earthly body through the surgery that was supposed to prolong his life he would have still been in that earthly body that struggled to breathe and walk. He would have been a little better for a little while, but he still would not have been fully well. But God, (I just love the words “but God”, don’t you?) loved him too much to leave him that way. What I’ve come to understand is that God did, in fact, answer my prayers. He answered them big, according to the working of His mighty power. He answered them better, because His plans for my dad were for a future and a hope. He answered them for eternity, not just for the temporary that I was asking for. He did heal my dad, gloriously and completely. If anything, I should be celebrating instead of heartbroken because he is where my spirit longs to be, in the presence of my Jesus. What can be better than that??

It was such a strange feeling the moment he stopped breathing to know that He was looking at the Savior as I was standing next to his bed, that he was seeing what I could not. To know that we were both alive in that moment but seeing totally different things because I am limited on this earth and He is with the Savior.

So, what I’ve come to understand as much as my human mind can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, is that like Job, I need a proper perspective of who I am and Who God is. Job pled his case, saying that he had done all of the things, had honored God, had been “good.” God responded, reminding Job that he didn’t create the world and cause everything to work as it should. He did not make the lightening and tell it when to strike. He did not give the ocean boundaries and tell it that it can only go so far. He doesn’t know everything that God knows. And then He went on to bless Job. Yes, He let him know, you did do all the things, you did honor and obey Me (which is probably more than God could always say about me). Just know who you are and Who I AM. He then gave Job more than he had before.

He also gave my dad so much more than he had before. Knowing that doesn’t make me miss him less but because of God’s goodness and grace I know I will get to be with my dad again. Until then, I get to enjoy the gifts he left behind of music and laughter and love. I’m so thankful for those gifts God allowed for the purpose of holding me over until I get the total fulfillment of His ultimate promise, the resounding “YES” to my prayer for eternal deliverance, the “YES” my dad has already received for his.

And that, my friend, is a solid “Yes.”