God will test you in the area most important to you. The test is to reveal whether you value Him or the things He can do for you the most. How do you handle it when you don’t get the answer to your prayers that you wanted? This devotional will develop having an “even if” relationship with God.
JASON GRUBBS
Day 1
Scriptures: Psalms 34:8, Romans 8:28, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Hebrews 11:1
What Now?
Most of us have been there. You wanted something SO BAD, but it didn’t happen. You prayed on it. You were patient. You fasted. You waited. Maybe you even felt like it was meant to be. But it still didn’t happen.
So what now?
First, you have to settle something in your heart and mind. God is good. You may never know why you didn’t get what you wanted. You may have done all the right things and still come up short, but God is good. You may never understand how, but God is taking care of you despite the pain of the circumstance.
First, settle that. If you have to cry or scream and yell, get it all out. Let God know exactly how you feel. He knows anyway, but He values the relationship between you two and He wants to hear from you. Tell Him how upset you are and why. Then thank Him for His goodness. Praise Him that He is Holy, and He is good, and He loves you so very much. Thank Him for the fact that He is able to work things out that you cannot see.
I wish I could tell you exactly why the answer was no, but I can’t. All I can tell you is that as Christians we will face many things in life we don’t know the answers to. God does not owe us an explanation either. If we are truly going to walk by faith, then by its very definition we will be walking without being able to see everything.
The good news is that God will use this as an opportunity to bring you closer to Him, if you let Him.
Day 2
Scriptures: John 16:33, Daniel 3, Daniel 3:18
Decide Ahead of Time
On the first day of this devotional, we worked on settling the fact that God is good despite whatever our circumstances say. Today, we are going to decide to remain faithful to God in bad conditions.
This is a difficult step.
It is very tempting to cave to the pressures we feel when it seems like nothing is going right as we follow the Lord. Sometimes our perspective gets off, and we believe that if we do what’s right everything will go smoothly and conveniently. Often times doing what’s right comes with delayed benefits while doing what is wrong comes with instant gratification.
When our world is crashing in and we just want relief from the pain, choosing to go our own way is very attractive. So it is very important for us to decide ahead of time that we will remain loyal to God no matter what comes our way.
A great example comes from the trial of three Hebrew young men in exile in Babylon. They faced being burned alive just for refusing to worship the king’s statue so they could remain faithful to God. Pay special attention to what they say in verse 18.
They let the king of Babylon know that God can save them from him. They expand by saying that even if God doesn’t they still will not serve his gods or worship his idol. How could they do such a powerful thing in the face of death if they hadn’t already made up their minds on the matter beforehand?
This is something we all need to examine ourselves on. What would we do if we were in the same situation? What choices do we make now when we feel afraid or threatened? Make the decision to stick with God no matter what.
Day 3
Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Luke 18:1
Pray and Pray
For Day 3 and Day 4 of this devotional, we are going to be looking at two instances when God said no.
Today we’re going to explore the apostle Paul asking God to remove the thorn in his flesh. The Bible never tells us exactly what this thorn is that was bothering Paul. That is good news for us because it makes it relatable to whatever we might be going through. You can substitute your thorn for Paul’s and apply the same principles.
Paul got to see some wonderful things about Heaven that were indescribable. He said he was given the thorn in the flesh to keep him humble after all the amazing things he had seen. He asked the Lord to remove it, but God told him His Grace was all he needed.
What I want you to notice is that Paul was a man of prayer. He begged the Lord three times on this issue alone. In prayer is where he found his answer. God told him no and explained why in response to Paul’s prayer. Like we talked about on Day 1, God will certainly not always provide the “why”. However, if we have any chance of discovering the “why,” it will surely come in response to prayer.
Through prayer, Paul also discovered the purpose in his no. Through his suffering, he could display the Power of Christ. This made him happy, and he could then take pleasure in his weakness.
Continuing to pray when we are disappointed with God’s answer is crucial to deepening our relationship with Him. Maintaining Spiritual discipline is hard when we don’t get what we want. If we hang on long enough, we will find ways to glorify Christ in our trials. Then we too can take pleasure in our weaknesses.
Day 4
Scriptures: Luke 22:39-44, 1 Peter 5:6, Romans 8:18
Submit Anyway
Following with prayer when God says no, is the act of submission.
I can think of no greater example of this than when Jesus submitted to the Will of the Father for Him to be crucified.
After it is apparent that the answer to our prayer is no, we have a choice. We can rebel or we can submit. We rebel by choosing a different path than what God calls for in His Word. We submit by obeying God even if it is tougher to do so.
Jesus chose to submit. He was praying so intensely in the Garden of Gethsemane that His sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood! He fervently wanted a yes, but He got a no. His prayer was that despite what He wanted, He wanted the Father’s Will to be done above His own.
May we have this same attitude of heart in our own lives. We face many hard things but few of us will face the ridicule, shame, torture, and pain that came with the Crucifixion that Jesus was facing. He is our example showing that if we can endure suffering by submitting to God, we can enjoy the reward just as He did.
Submitting to God keeps things in their proper order. He is God, and we are not. He knows what is best, while we do not. He sees the full picture, but we only see a small piece. Submitting to Him means we trust Him when things don’t make sense to us. Spend some time today talking with the Lord. Ask Him if you have surrendered all areas of your life to Him.
Day 5
Scriptures: Genesis 22:1-19, Hebrews 11:17-19, Psalms 18:31
Can I Have That?
Sometimes God says no by taking things away.
We can become reliant on some things too much, and God only wants us to be reliant on Him. Or we can value some things too much, and God only wants us to value Him the most. He is our Source. Everything else He blesses us with is just a resource that He uses.
When we grow out of balance with the things God has blessed us with, those things can become what God removes so that we might learn to lean on Him.
Abraham was on the verge of losing what He valued most, and it was God who asked of it from him. Abraham always wanted a son, and in his and his wife’s old age, God blessed them with one, Isaac. God told Abraham He was going to give him many descendants through Isaac. So it made little sense when God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to Him.
I’m sure this was a difficult and confusing thing for Abraham to accept. Nevertheless, he obeyed God. In Hebrews, the Bible explains that Abraham figured that if Isaac died God could bring him back to life again. This is so powerful because although Abraham didn’t fully understand, he did know that God was his Source. He wasn’t looking to Isaac to fix his problem nor was he looking to himself. He knew that God could fix it and that He would fix it in some way to keep His promise.
Of course, in the end, God did not require Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and intervened before he was harmed. God also kept His promise and greatly increased Abraham’s descendants through Isaac.
What is our dependence on? Do we put it in people, jobs, or things? If so we need to pray on changing that. Our dependence should be solely on the Solid Rock that is our God.
Day 6
Scriptures: Matthew 24:36, 1 Corinthians 15:58, Philippians 4:1
Be Encouraged
My friends, can I encourage you today?
I know you may have gotten some painful no’s before. Or maybe you’re reading this devotional because you are afraid of a no coming on the horizon. We have all been there. I wouldn’t be able to write this devotional had I not experienced the bitterness of some no’s myself.
I want to encourage you by this simple phrase: God’s got it.
Settle the fact that God is good even in bad circumstances. Choose to remain faithful when times are tough. Pray, pray, pray, and pray some more. Submit to the Will of the Father. Rely solely on Him. Remember that He’s got it.
Listen, God made everything and He knows everything. There is nothing that escapes His sight. Nothing has happened to you or not happened to you unless He allowed it. And He loves you. Ultimately everything will be ok. In fact, it will be MORE than ok, but you will have to endure some suffering until then.
If God has not given you the reasons why, it doesn’t necessarily mean you did anything wrong either. Sometimes it’s just not in His Will for us to know and that is ok. For example, only God the Father knows when Heaven and earth will disappear in the end times. He hasn’t revealed that to the angels or Jesus. So there are certainly some things that we just have to trust God about until and if He decides to reveal them.
Stick with God always. Help someone else out along the way. They may be struggling with things you now have experience with. Keep on going, always abounding in the work of the Lord.