When God Says No

What a crushing experience it can be to be a person of faith who had been praying and believing for healing with all their heart for a loved one or friend, only to have them suffer and die. This is a turning point of faith, resulting in spiritual maturing or loss of belief and hope in God. We believe that God will bring miraculous healing despite ongoing evidence to the contrary. After all, isn’t this what faith is: believing for those things that are not yet seen? We absolutely know our Lord can do it, regardless of whether we’ve seen other miracles of life or not. And yet…the person dies. Or continues to suffer with no relief. It is so very difficult to accept that our loving God allowing such pain as we walk this earth.

We may become angry with God. After all, we have done everything right in our prayers according to scripture. We claimed the right scriptures. We spoke out in faith. We were faithful intercessors, sharing words of encouragement and hope. We asked for what we believe, from our viewpoint, is God’s best, a restored, healthy life on this earth. When those we love continue to suffer and die regardless of our prayers, these are times of great spiritual struggle. Our belief in a loving and merciful God who heals is greatly challenged, perhaps shaking our very foundation of belief and trust in the Lord.

We struggle to understand and accept outcomes that are the opposite of our prayers. We know He is an all-powerful God who is able, and, indeed, has provided much healing and deliverance. So why doesn’t He? We may start to think “Why even pray? You are going to do whatever You want anyway.” Some conclude that God loves us but really is not able, has no power or authority to intervene in our lives. Our human free will supercedes His will and our prayers. In addition to this not being scriptural, why believe in a God that is just as helpless or limited as we are? It negates the work Jesus accomplished on the cross when He defeated death and rose in victory over death, hell, and the grave.

Some of us get into a power struggle with God, which of course, we won’t win. We start to warn God that we’ll just quit talking to Him since He isn’t listening anyway. In 1984, when my brother, Dick, was diagnosed with metastacized kidney cancer, I was the “chief intercessor,” convinced God would heal him. Within two months, God allowed my brother to die. He was only 39, leaving a wife and two young children. I was confused as well as devastated. Without admitting it, I got angry with God. I believed with all my heart for healing and Dick still died. I did everything according to the Word.

I did not understand or agree with this decision on God’s part. God shortly showed me rebelliously sitting down in the middle of the road, mad and sad about it all. This, of course, did not move the heart of God though I know He understood.What it did do is cut me off from the comfort and peace I needed that only He can provide in such difficult losses. I had gone out on a spiritual limb of faith and He cut that off. It was no surprise to Him that I was angry! But just as the disciples said, who are we going to go to if not God? He alone has the words of life.

God knows how to handle His pouting children when we do not like, agree with, or approve of His decisions. Our loving Father will not be manipulated. Most of us have faith to believe God could have intervened, as I had believed and counted upon. When He does not, it is difficult to swallow the bitter pill of His inaction. Questions flood our souls:“Why didn't He heal? Why didn't He prevent it? Why did He give us children or jobs or homes, etc. etc. only to take them away? Why did my neighbor’s child live and mine did not? Why why why, Lord?” And on and on we can go, stuck in the dark pit of our soul’s reasoning as we search to understand God.

God is in this darkness with us and does bring healing, but one fact I had to eventually accept. He may grant healing but it may not be the healing in the body that we are asking for. Of course we want our loved one to stay on this earth with us. We don’t want anyone to suffer such painful loss, regardless of what God can accomplish through the process when surrendered to Him. Our hearts don’t see or understand the outcome, at least until some time has passed.

“Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.” Micah 7:8 KJV

When I sat in the darkness of my soul, having no understanding of God and His ways, He was with me. He helped me to heal from this first, tragic “No.” God does not sustain life on this earth for all of our loved ones. There are so many painful, tragic events that cause much suffering and loss that are a part of our earthly existence. When we allow it, though, God will heal our wounded hearts of faith and bring us closer to Him in the process. Who else has answers to life and death? Life will never be the same but God is still with us, even with such unanswered prayers vital to us. It does become easier to see the good that comes after we have passed through such times of pain, distress, and testing.

Love and grief exist together, one inevitably paired with the other. God obviously does not see death as we do. He dwells in eternity while we are stuck in time. God has been allowing suffering, illness and death as part of the curse of this life ever since Adam and Eve in the Garden. He is able to shed His light in our dark times. He is able to break our will while comforting our hearts through these circumstances He’s allowed. Nonetheless, these life events, common to man, remain one of the stumbling blocks along many a Christian’s path.

When we are patient and ask, God will graciously help us understand His will and His ways. He may even explain His timing, as He did after I was done being angry and could listen. Following this period of great spiritual struggle for me, God kindly lifted my oppression and grief so I could hear Him provide this answer to me:“I picked Dick when he was ripe.” I knew that was His voice, in part because I would never have thought or said such a thing! We were all raised in a Christian home, with parents who demonstrated their faith. My brother had a believing wife but had resisted commitment to the Lord.

From his struggle with cancer, facing deaht, my brother was at the “peak” of his spiritual walk. He had understandably turned to Jesus in his suffering. God took him home so he would have a better resurrection. God always prioritizes the things of the spirit over life on this earth. My brother’s death many years ago brought about the biggest change in my spiritual walk I could experience. Knowing that God loves us in spite of allowing things to happen that are very painful and cause suffering is a valuable lesson. We can do everything scripturally right in our intercessions, claim the healing scriptures, have faith and trust in His healing power, but the outcome remains the same. It is still in His hands.

It is not our will, but God’s will that is done, though that is a harsh truth for many unable to accept or understand. People often wonder if it is something they did or did not do that causes disease or accident or adversity. The choices we make in this life certainly impact our health. We know daily habits, stress, and emotions such as suppressed anger and bitterness surely damage our physical bodies. But we can always find someone who has made many poor choices that should have impacted their health or longevity and yet they live to a ripe old age.

The disciples had a similar question for the Lord about a blind man:

“As Jesus passed by, He saw a man who had been blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?’

Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” John 9:1-3 NASB

The works of God are displayed when people learn to live with affliction as well as when a person dies. Paul learned that with the thorn in the flesh that God did not remove. Paul does not say what it was. It could have been a physical affliction or more likely, God did not remove the “thorn” of the opposition and persecution to his ministry from the Jewish religious leaders at that time. Paul did not have an easy time of the calling God gave him. He learned many things through all the persecution and adversity he confronted. Paul testified that the power of Christ is revealed through our human weaknesses and afflictions:

“Even if I wanted to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will credit me with more than he sees in me or hears from me, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. So to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:6-10 Berean

Leading up to this passage, Paul was listing all the achievements he had when he was Saul, the persecutor of the Jews. It had to be hard for him to go from being a leader held in esteem to one who faced opposition and controversy at every turn. It was not an easy road, as is often the case with God’s own. It was God’s idea, God’s calling for Paul. So why didn’t He make it easier for His apostle? Paul instead had a character change through surrender. He learned to delight, even celebrate, all he faced, including this thorn in the flesh, to show forth the power and grace of his Lord.

There is little evidence in the Bible that God ever makes it easy for those called and chosen by Him! Yet we persist in believing that He will or should eliminate all of our suffering while serving Him. It turns out to be a childish, immature idea that He will reward us with what we want, because God loves us and we are being good—sort of like the fictional idea of Santa Claus. Our merciful God is certainly able to reverse or change what we do for His purposes but it depends on His plan for us and for those we care about.

This is hard to see and understand while we walk on this earth and use our soulish minds to comprehend His ways. Of course, there are consequences to our choices, but the key is to know that God is not punishing us. Disease and death are part of this life. Sometimes it’s a natural consequence of our actions, but more often things just happen. Someone gets lung cancer who has never smoked. Another is in a car accident caused by someone else. Children are born to believing parents who have disabilities, limiting their health and quality of life. Mass disasters and destruction happen, even more frequently. Christians suffer loss, pain, and death all the time, without exclusion.

We must learn to deal with times when God says no. We cannot see the good coming when we are in the bad, until and unless God teaches us more of His ways. How many saints grew up with an issue, weakness, affliction or flaw that God later uses in their calling and ministry? This is not only a comfort to others suffering similarly, but shows the unbelievers that we have faith in spite of as well as because of God’s faithfulness. The ultimate lesson is surrender: He is God and we are not. It is out of our control.

We learn to surrender more rapidly, to really praise Him in all things, not to give up in despair or unbelief. How many times do we have circumstances where all seems lost to us, and it turns out to give us a new beginning? We are not alone in needing to learn how to handle God’s NO at His feet. Whether we agree at the time or not, whether we suffer the loss patiently as part of life, or get bitter and upset with God, He is in control. Illness and death is rarely a punishment from God to an individual Christian. When it is, however, God is able to let us know our sin and deal with it.

We are forgiven, but the decision about wiping out the consequences is up to God. There’s more than one Christian who continues to suffer consequences for past choices, but God redeems and restores it all. This is the lesson God taught many Old Testament saints who thought about, prayed, sought God, hoping and planning, only to have life unfold differently. King David experienced such corrective judgment from God when He grievously sinned against the Lord.

David earnestly sought the Lord’s healing for life for the son he conceived from his affair with Bathsheba. He knew enough of God’s nature to earnestly fast and pray for a week in hopes that God would change His mind about this severe consequence because of his sin. Nathan the prophet, whom God used to confront him, had foretold their baby son’s death as a consequence of David’s great sin:

“And the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s widow bore to David, and he was very sick. David therefore appealed to God for the child [to be healed]; and David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. The elders of his household stood by him [in the night] to lift him up from the ground, but he was unwilling [to get up] and would not eat food with them.

Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, ‘While the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he would not listen to our voices. How then can we tell him the child is dead, since he might harm himself [or us]?’ But when David saw that his servants were whispering to one another, he realized that the child was dead.

So David said to them, ‘Is the child dead?’ And they said, ‘He is dead.’ Then David got up from the ground, washed, anointed himself [with olive oil], changed his clothes, and went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he came [back] to his own house, and when he asked, they set food before him and he ate.

Then his servants said to him, ‘What is this thing that you have done? While the child was alive you fasted and wept, but when the child died, you got up and ate food.’ David said, ‘While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I thought, ‘Who knows, the Lord may be gracious to me and the child may live.’ But now he is dead; why should I [continue to] fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him [when I die], but he will not return to me.” 2 Samuel 12:15-23 NASB

David was denied his request for his son to live. He got a very painful and resounding “NO” and had to live with it being a consequence of His own actions. He did all he could through an intense time of intercession in hopes of reversing God’s judgment because He knew God was merciful and gracious. David understood the heart of God but the elders and others in his household were confused by his actions after the child’s death. David was not afraid to ask, to intercede for his child’s life, but when the child died, he immediately surrendered to God’s will in the matter. The scriptures record that David got up and went to God’s house to worship. He had been heard but God’s answer was no.

We may not know what the Lord might be saving our loved ones from by allowing their death when it happens. Some questions we have to wait upon or may never understand while on this earth. Taking my brother when he was “ripe” meant, to me, that my brother’s faith, strengthened by the short months of his suffering, would be sustained in the afterlife. Had he been restored to his life before, he may have once again drifted from his faith in Jesus.

God does not have to explain Himself to us, but it is wonderful when He does. Some of us, however, still have a long list of questions for God when we are on the other side. Either they will be answered or none of it will matter when we are completely with Him in the spirit. While we walk this earthly path, however, we would like God to conform to how we see living and dying. The truth is that our thoughts and ways, our limited human viewpoints, are truly not His thoughts and ways. As did David, we continue to ask until the spirit releases us from intercession.

And there are those seemingly rare occasions when He suddenly reverses a predicted outcome. Read what happened to King Hezekiah when he begged the Lord to live longer:

“In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.

Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying, ‘Remember now, O Lord, I beseech Thee, how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Thy sight.’ And Hezekiah wept bitterly.” 2 Kings 20:1-2 Berean

God sends the prophet back to tell Hezekiah that He has heard his prayer and seen his tears. He grants Hezekiah fifteen more years, during which Hezekiah accomplishes much. But Hezekiah also fathered his son, Manassah, who was twelve when Hezekiah died. Manassah took over the kingdom and did not do right in God’s eyes. The Israelites then ended up in bondage in Babylon. God graciously changed His mind about Hezekiah, an outcome that seemed good to him but appeared to cause problems later. This gives us more to meditate upon in understanding when God says no.

Surrender to God’s will when we lose someone we love is one of the biggest obstacles on our faith journey. Simple platitudes such as “It was just God’s will,” or “God wanted Him in heaven,” bring little comfort to someone who is too young or too immature in their walk with God to be comforted by such easily said words. It’s least helpful when the person is in deep pain, overwhelmed with grief, loss, and confusion. Sometimes not saying anything, just listening to whatever the grieving person needs to say is wisdom. We can sit quietly and provide love and support while resisting advice that is neither helpful nor welcome.

We need to listen and wait upon the Lord before offering such “spiritual bandages.” We learn to be sensitive to the spirit’s leading, God’s timing and wise counsel as well as His strength, to walk with others who find themselves facing these difficult times. Through our own afflictions, we painfully learn wisdom and strengthe to share with others. The best words of comfort come from the Lord, Whose holy spirit knows just how to support and comfort others. But how long it can take for us to see things God’s way!

In God, endings are eventually new beginnings when we allow Him to work within us. Life without our loved one is forever changed but goes on. We may or may not see the good it might work for the future. But His word is sure and His nature remains the same. These struggles teach us more than we learn in our good times, as we continue to ask like the Psalmist:

“Make me understand the way of Your precepts, so that I will meditate (focus my thoughts) on Your wonderful works. My soul dissolves because of grief; Renew and strengthen me according to [the promises of] Your word…

Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, and I will [steadfastly] observe it to the end. Give me understanding [a teachable heart and the ability to learn], that I may keep Your law and observe it with all my heart. Make me walk in the path of Your commandments for I delight in it. Incline my heart to Your testimonies…

It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.” Psalms 119:27-28;33-36;71 Amplified

.Our lives are never the same after the death of someone we love. But God remains the same and He will strengthen us, comfort us, and even help us understand when we are ready to hear Him. We can be grateful He has patience with us, though we may lack it ourselves in such situations. He truly does work all things for good, as He states in a favorite scripture:

“And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes ALL things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose.” Romans 8:28 Amplified