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when god says no

Dear readers–I’m pulling this one from the archives today for you…mostly because it was what I needed. -J.

 

Do you remember the first time you wondered if God really was good?

I can’t say I remember the first. But I have to admit to you that it’s a constant decision of mine: to choose truth and trust. It was Eve’s issue too, right? Questioning the purity of God’s motives; her created brain and heart tossing around a new idea about the one who walks with them in the cool of the idea, who spun them from dust for each other.

Maybe he’s the one who’s lying.

Periodically you’ve read as I’ve wrestled with God here and there–say, with the contract falling through on my book, the cancer scare with my son, the fear I struggle with in parenting.

Like Jacob, it’s left parts of me dislocated now and again.

Don’t miss STRUGGLING WITH FAITH? YOU’RE IN GOOD COMPANY

But there is too much evidence that this God is who he says. And there are too many parts of me starkly false,  undeveloped, limited in sight: Let God be true and every man a liar (Romans 3:4).

I don’t know what prayers of yours feel unanswered, or in which you’ve received a flat-out no.

But as I continue to come back to my questions of unanswered prayer–things that I was so certain God would want too–I’m scrawling memos to anchor me.

Especially when I just want to lean on my own three-pound brain understanding of the world.

If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust?

If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate?

As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children.

So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?

Matthew 7:9-11

PRINT THIS “WHEN GOD SAYS NO” INFOGRAPHIC HERE.

WHEN GOD SAYS NO

Tell us in the comments.

What truth do you hold onto when God says “no”–or at least “no for now”?

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