Word of Encouragement (2/22/2021)

In speaking of the necessity of prayer, we talked about how God uses our prayer to accomplish His will. One of the things He wants to accomplish is conforming our hearts to His. He does this through the way God responds to our prayer—yes, or no, or wait—and the way we interpret it in light of Scripture. Today, let’s talk about how God conforms our hearts to His by saying no.

This question may sound ridiculous but how do we know when God’s answer is no? In some cases, it is obvious. When we pray for something specific—such as getting into a certain school or getting a certain job or promotion or getting a certain test/surgery result, etc.—and it doesn’t happen as we prayed. But many of our petitions are more general without a specific deadline—such as praying for a new job or healing from a sickness or improvement of our family/marriage relationship or someone’s salvation, etc. Discerning whether God’s answer is no or not in these cases is trickier. After praying for a long time, we may get discouraged and think that God’s answer is no. It may very well be but God’s answer may be, wait, instead.

Here, we have to recognize that there are such things as matters of “indifference.” Even though the Word of God generally makes a clear distinction between what is good and what is evil, it also recognizes that there are many things in life, which are neither good nor evil but are matters of wisdom. This is what Paul said in the matter of eating the meat that is sold in the market. At that time, a major supplier of meat was the pagan temples, at which animals were sacrificed to pagan idols. Some believers considered the meat unclean; others thought nothing of it because those idols were not “real.” Paul’s verdict was that this was a matter of indifference: believers can eat it or not eat it according to their conscience and as long as they did not stumble the weaker brethren in doing so.

A lot of things we pray for are matters of indifference. There is no law of God, which says we have to get into a certain school or get a new job or purchase certain things, etc. It is not that these matters are outside of God’s sovereign will. It’s just that they belong to God’s secret will, which is not revealed in God’s Word. When it comes to these matters of indifference, we can pray for a time and decide that it is not God’s will and stop praying. (Even so, God’s answer might have been “wait” and He might grant you the wish in His own time!) But when it comes to things that we believe are in accordance with God’s Word (such as praying for the salvation of our loved ones or our relationship with our fellow Christians to be reconciled and restored), we should not be quick to give up but persist in prayer.

When God’s answer is clearly no in matters of indifference, we should not think that God doesn’t love us or is punishing us in some cruel way. We may want something because we think it is good for us. But we must admit that our knowledge is limited and our vision is near-sighted. Prov. 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” God, who knows all things, knows what is truly good for us. Because He loves us—how can He hate those, for whom Christ laid down His life?—He steers us away from “the way to death” by saying no to some of our prayers. No from God is not easy to take, especially when we wanted something so badly. But let us learn to trust in the Lord and His good will toward us. Let us trust that, when He says no, He will lead us to something far better than what we want.