When God Says No

 We've all heard (perhaps even said) some form of the following phrases. 

"PUSH. Pray Until Something Happens." What if what happens isn't what you prayed for, but exactly the opposite, and there's no undoing it this side of Heaven?  

"When God closes a door, he opens a window." Tell that to the child trapped in abuse. Tell that to the woman who has longed for marriage, but none came. The one who's ached to hold a child in her arms, but her womb remains closed. Tell it to the mother who's watched a casket, and then the earth, swallow her baby. There was no window. 

"Let go and let God." Are you sure? Let him what? Are we really okay with letting him do the "taketh away" instead of the "giveth"? Do we ever really let God do anything? 

My therapist reminds me frequently "No" is a complete sentence. 

No. 

Sometimes "No" comes from the mouth of God. 

Some precious friends and I have been discussing the tension between longings (good, God-given, and God-honoring longings) and surrender. We've all be hit with a pretty loud "No". We are also in the risky business of still hoping for a "Yes" on this unsatiable altar of surrender. 

I was reading Deuteronomy yesterday. While doing so the following phrases and verses seemed glaringly appropriate to our ongoing conversation. 

"...went through all that great and terrifying wilderness... (1:9). Check. We all seem intimately acquainted with a terrifying wilderness.  

While in the terrifying wilderness, "Do not fear or be dismayed" (1:21), and "do not be in dread or afraid" (1:29). "The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place" (1:30-31). 

My friends and I can testify how the Lord has given of himself to us in our wilderness- how he even brought us to the wilderness and carried us from one moment to the next. He is still carrying us. Still fighting for us. We know of his tender care. Yet, we also know his "no". 

Then I caught something in the second chapter. The Israelites are wandering in the wilderness (for what amounts to forty years) in search of a Promise. Three times God tells them "No" before giving them a Yes". 

Three times he tells them, "I will not give you..." (2:5)

"I will not give you..." (2:9)

"I will not give you..." (2:19)

Then in 2:24, "I have given..." 

Gently inserted after the first "no" is a precious reminder that God always sees his people in their wilderness. "He knows your going through this great wilderness. These [many] years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing" (2:7). Yes, some of us "lack" our children. Some of us "lack" what our hearts painfully long for. We may not understand the "why" behind the "no", but we do not lack HIM. 

We are not the first, nor will we be the last of God's people to get a "No", perhaps again and again. Maybe our "Yes "will come soon; maybe it will never come this side of Heaven. But he sees us; he carries us. He fights for us like a Father for his child. Even when the wilderness years seem long and daunting. Even when the "No" is so very hard to bear. 

Even now, in light of the Promise of Heaven, he can say to me "I have given..." And it's true. So true. 

*These photos are the result of a "No" Abigail received just days before she left for Heaven.