When God Says “No” (Ecclesiastes 7:13-14)
Dear Members of the Our Savior Lutheran Church Email Prayer Chain,

When God Says “No”

Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. Ecclesiastes 7:13-14

Who likes to hear someone say “no”? I know I don’t.

Actually, as an average American late middle aged male, I can think of only two questions for which an answer of “no” is gratefully and enthusiastically received: “Do I have cancer?” and “Do I need to have a colonoscopy?”

This year, the Lord said “no” to me regarding a number of different situations in my life for which I had asked Him—pleaded with Him—to say “yes.” In each case, “no” was painful to hear and not the answer I wanted. So it took me a while to accept.

Many times, it seems easier to hear God say “no” when you can take a hard look at the facts and see why this is a good thing. But how about the alternative:  Everything looks right on paper. This matches with this and that fits nicely with that. The timing is “perfect.” In fact, it’s the perfect [FILL IN THE BLANK] that you’ve been waiting for. So why, WHY, isn’t it a part of God’s life plan for you?

When you break it down, of course, everything we can see makes sense to us. And therein lies the problem. We’re relying on our OWN knowledge and our OWN perspective to determine what is right.

But what we don’t know is everything that God knows. In other words, He knows everything about EVERYTHING that is going on in the plan for our lives. He is sovereign. And we only have an obstructed view through a scratchy, distorted lens.
So one would think that we’d gladly hand over our life decisions to Him. Whatever He says to us is gospel - literally and figuratively. But we hem and we haw. We struggle, and we hold on tightly. We don’t like it when God says “no.”

From the Bible, we read of how God said “no” in the lives of Sarah, Moses, Job, Jesus, Paul and others. Sometimes the “no” was in response to disobedience or related to timing. Sometimes it was due to someone taking matters into his or her own hands, and other times there wasn’t an explanation at all. But in all cases, God’s “no” was part of His plan.

In the end, the same God who says “no” is the same God who says “yes.” We can’t do anything that will change that, and we won’t always understand. But how blessed are we to have a God who cares so deeply about the most minute details of our lives!

In good times and in bad, let us trust God and know that His purpose for our lives—even when He says “no”—is perfect and far better than anything we could ever plan for ourselves.

REFLECTION

Has God told you “no” to a specific request this year? Write down the most recent “no’s” and thank Him for His providential hand in your life and how He is working everything for your good—even when you don’t understand His ways. Ask Him to help you submit to His will for your life.  

Prayers for the Week of December 28th

I have just returned to town minutes ago and as such I am out of touch with recent prayer requests. I do know that the Rowan family is in need of our prayers. Ted’s brothers who lived together lost their house recently to fire. Morris was badly  burned and died from his injuries today. Please pray for strength and comfort for the family. Pray that the Lord would guide us as to how we can be of help and assistance.

That according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. –Ephesians 3:16-21

In Christ,
Paul Nickel
Director of Christian Education
Our Savior Lutheran Church
 

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