What If the Answer Is No?

I am tired of no no no. Why is it so horrible to desire a child? Why does He give children to the most vile of people but not those equipped to love and cherish a child? Why allow me to get pregnant if He only plans to take the child before I can even hear a heart beat?

When I pray, I don’t wait for a yes or a no, but take hope from knowing that God most often says,”Instead”. Just as we parents do when our children are headed into a dangerous situation, God offers alternatives. Do this; Take this; Be this, instead. If I focus on exploring the alternative God is offering, I don’t waste time waiting for the yes that is not meant to be or wallow in the rejection of the no.

A day late in my response as I visit family, Great article and wonderful responses, thank you for discussing a difficult topic for many of us. The fact is Our Father does no best. I have learned that we should include in our prayers, Lord if it be according to your will when it comes to careeer descions, and in decisions that involves others to be patient and to wait on Him; He really does have a plan. When we come to the Lord. in our prayers for our loved ones that are astray our hurt, Lord open up their eyes that they may see your goodness, so often we see the no’s instead of looking at all the many yes’s that the Lord has provided.over the years. We are often leaking vessels that forget that the Lord has been GOOD and is faithful to be with us in our lourney. For those that feel as if God has abandoned you, this is not true, He has promised never to leave us or forsake us!! Blessings.

I don’t understand the places in the Gospels in which Jesus says that if we ask for anything in his name that it will be given to us.

When my husband left after 37 years of marriage, I prayed very diligently that he would return. That was not to be. God called me into the Roman Catholic expression of the Christian faith at that point of my life. I had previously been a follower of Christ but in a different denomination. That was incredibly healing and liberating for me. My priest told me that God had offered me the freedom to be myself as that was not possible for me in my marriage. God did not answer my prayer to have my husband return; however, God’s wisdom was even greater and more generous as life has brought me more joy than I ever could have imagined. God is good! Thank you for this post!

I learned from Bo Sanchez to SEE, SOW, SURRENDER.
In prayer, I ask God to See my request clearly and with feeling. “Lord, give me back control of this building.” And I feel peaceful in the midst of turmoil.
I pray to have the courage to SOW, to do what needs to be done. For example, to gently guide my lawyer on the next step in our case.
I then SURRENDER. “Look give me what I ask, or if you answer NO, give me something better. And I rest in Him. Sometimes still agitated. Sometimes sleepy. Sometimes distraught. But trusting HIM.
Lord let me SEE things clearly and with feeling.
Let me SOW and do and act as you guide and direct me.
Let me SURRENDER. Lord give me this request, or something better. Then I wait. Trusting in His love and His grace.

I had an experience in recent months that led me to believe I was hearing God’s call to do something that led me down a path that God created and called me too that was divinely inspired. I traveled in anintensely spiritual and uplifting journey. I believed I knew where that journey would leave me. To my shock and amazement and bafflement, that is not where the journey went. To say that I was shatteref is too small a statement. The words that I heard in my head were, “be still and know that I am God.” I went directly to Scripture. I could not believe what I was reading. They seem to be written directly at me. I kept hearing the message to be still. I prayed. I meditated. I talked with my spiritual director. It happens that the last stage of the journey I just went on Was a Ignation discernment process. I went to the book that had the steps and worked the process on this problem. It was transformative. For the first time I fully understood the Ignation process of spiritual indifference or is he also calls it spiritual freedom. I truly understood and wanted to give over all of my longing to God’s will and to be free to whatever God called me to do.
Then a few weeks later my spiritual director mailed me a very small book about the gift of spiritual exercises. She did not know one of my favorite mentors wrote the book. I didn’t make it past the first few chapters and the description of Ignatius’ distinction between gift and possession. I realized that what had been given, the journey, was a gift and I was treating it as a possession. It was a gift that was to be used at the discretion of God.
As so many said, looking back, it often takes time before we see the gift!

I am also waiting for God’s answer to many fervent prayers. And this prayer helps me, “ I know, I am certain, I am convinced, even if I do not know how, when, and by what means, that the Lord will deliver me, and I will have victory in Jesus’ name.”

I got an emphatic “no” to the life I so desperately wanted when I was in my 20s! It was so traumatic that I actually knew that I had hit rock-bottom. I sat around feeling sorry for myself for a while, then decided that I only had one course of action…to climb up out of the pit I was in. I didn’t give up on God, I spent many years trying to build a relationship with him. I am now 70 years old and have finally forgiven God for saying no! Ignatian spirituality has taught me so much. Finally, I’m at peace with God and myself. I pray earnestly that none of you have to wait this long to have your life turned around!

God said no to my husband and myself many years ago and it took nearly 30 years to find that it was the best thing that ever happened to us. We were beginning his career and the job offer took us miles away from both families. It forced us to begin our new life far away from those we loved and make our own path in life. We did not have the resources available today nor did we have the finances to go back home whenever we wanted to.
Today we see the benefits of that no. Joan

Sometimes the “no” is more like “not now”. Or it is “not your way but Mine”. So it is easier for me to accept the Divine “no”. God does answer my prayers but my time is not God’s time. If I have faith, I will wait. If I have hope, I will not feel unanswered. If I have love, I will continue on doing whatever I can for others while I wait. God is always there, teaching me, loving me, caring about me. I rest in His arms.

My husband passed away after suffering from cancer. I continue to go to Mass every day and be involved in various ministries and I Thank God for allowing me to do this; but I also pray that God will ease the hurt in my heart and let me wake up and once again think “it’s a beautiful day, and I am looking forward to what it will bring”. I haven’t felt this passion for life for quite some time. I think of the Blessed Mother, and the heartache she must have felt. I pray to be strong as she was strong.

Am 41 yrs old, unmarried & childless. I have prayed for years for a spouse & beginning to wonder if the answer is No. Am really tired of the loneliness & I feel time is running out to conceive & raise a child. I had fibroids & went through surgery the other day. I feel frustrated, & angry because I don’t know what to do about this unfulfilled desires. Am beginning to loose interest in prayer… Discouraged … disappointed. I feel stuck in this dark place. How do I move on? How do I accept that my life will never be what I prayed?

This post is a gift and so relevant to events in my life right now. Thank you.

As I was looking down closely to what I saw from this over-looking view where i stood again on this foggy day, i remember so quickly the question I often asked, “where have all these beauty comes?”
Admitingly, when i was a kid, i would rather go singing my songs than study my leasons at home after school. I end up marrying a man my age “at seventeen.”
Yet long before, I’ve dreamed of so many things; a house on top of the hill, a family with children my own, a loving husband that cares to take me into his world, and a penny to help me buy anything i want; a big diamond, a limousine with tented window pane, a house made of stones and a horse with wings for my flight.
Well, but i thought, the talent i got can bring me up what i desire. Yet, today where have all these longing comes. It goes nowhere like the fogs fading on the gray horizon…
I smiled and laugh out loud when I saw the sun shines back to where the trees stood still again, beaming and waving their leaves as though trying to reach out a hand to the thousands of generation, yet, has to come.
Today, as i saw the fogs docked the mountain bed before the rain falls gently, i thought, “ah, this is God’s work, for me to be reminded again that no one is exempted to taste the goodness of the Lord,” whoever you are, and wherever you are in the world, these are all yours from God, a gift you never owed.
I smiled again. Yes Lord, you are my dream comes true. Whatever, your will be done.

Wow! What an insightful conversation. My prayer for ten years for my only child was answered this summer. God took him to heaven at age twenty-five. I have no children, nor will I ever have grandchildren. So I am seeking God’s will for my life again at age sixty. Yes, my life is about a personal relationship with God and trusting Him with the result. Your comments have confirmed my beliefs and given me peace.

I am a Christian mystic and one of the things I have studied through God most of my life is the mechanics of prayer. I have come to “know” that in fact there is no “no” in the mind of God, and that with reference to prayer, what sounds like a “no” to us down here on Earth can be a number of things. First, it is that we are not telling the whole truth in our prayer to begin with, an occurrence that essentially nullifies our prayer. Second, we may be praying for something that isn’t real. In our minds it is, but in the reality of God, it isn’t. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen prayers that, in context, make absolutely no sense. And certainly wouldn’t to God. Things like praying for peace on Earth, when the matter at hand, like genocide, is much more tangible and concrete, and is the petitioner really willing to wait until peace occurs on Earth for God to take up the more pressing, the more real matter? Third, as someone above has noted, time is an element of prayer. And in this context, God does not control time. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we abandon the prayer for something else. Or stop working toward it. And lastly, at least for now, we have to be committed to the prayer. Committed to our bones. We have to pray it for as long as it takes. And pay the bill. Right before a prayer is answered we are sent something from God (I call it, the bill). It usually takes the form of “the last thing I would do for God.” It may be taking in your wife’s deadbeat, alcoholic brother. It may be working with AIDS patients. It could be anything. If you find your soul shying away from it, then it’s probably from God and is there as part of your spiritual growth. Pay the bill, sit back, and don’t forget to say, thank you. (Another problem with prayer: people often are shocked by receiving the answer to their prayer, because it doesn’t look exactly what they imagined it would look like, or they don’t like the added responsibility that this answer-to-a-prayer demands, or all sorts of things.)

When the answer is not “yes”, wouldn’t it be so much easier on us if God would let us know He’ll get back to us on the subject at some future date? Instead, we wait in silence, wondering whether we’ve been heard at all. So we repeat the prayer, again and again, remembering the parable of the widow and the unjust judge, we pray without ceasing.
Our family has been in just such a situation for the past four years with regard to a family member who has estranged himself from us. We wonder at times whether God hears our prayers, and if so why doesn’t He act? Why doesn’t He do something? Why doesn’t He….and then we remember, our time is not God’s time, and God works many miracles we are not privy to at the moment. The key is to remember that all our prayers are indeed heard, we can offer our pain, frustration, discouragement as a sacrifice to be joined to Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice.
The bottom line is, don’t give up on God – He never gives us on us. The best is yet to come.

This is really on point for me. I had a huge discussion with God on this very topic last week. I have prayed for two things for two people I love very much. These are things that lots of people have and are not miracle cures or anything like that. One of the things I pray for is the most basic need – a job for someone I love. I was so upset by what I felt to be SILENCE! I felt like I was beating my head against the wall. Was I doing it wrong? Was I missing something? I want to understand the silence. It has been years of prayer for both requests.
This helped some. A little more perspective.
When my head is clear and I am doing less ranting, I remember that there are three answers: An emphatic “YES!”, a “Not right now” and “I have something so much better in mind for you.” I try to hold tight to that. So, according to my own thinking, it is probably not “no.”
m.

I love your paragraph about the relationship we are invited into — this is so validating of ourselves as strong-in-the-Lord and growing into the image of Christ. Sometimes, we have to “put on the big-girl/-boy pants”, but it shows that we ARE growing up and that He’s trusting us with a challenge. And then, there are also the yes’es!

i prefer to hear “not at this time” rather than “no.” God’s timing and my insistence on NOW can be at variance, so I have to trust that God, if He so chooses, can answer my prayer later. Or it can be HIS way later. I’ve learned to not be so demanding in what I pray for, i.e., help my son find Your Face, rather than make my son stop that specific behavior.

What a great post! Thank you for your insight! Your words came right at the right time.