Sometimes He Says No

God I mean. We’ve had a rocky relationship, God and I, these past few years. Well actually, God hasn’t really changed so the truth is I’m the only one standing at the edge of that particular cliff. I was the one who cried out to Him one minute and railed against Him the next. And it was me who just stopped talking to Him altogether for a while. Looking back over those years, I’m ashamed of that. But I suppose it was a necessary journey for me to begin to forge my own faith and not rely so much on the faith of others. And in doing that, I’ve had to reexamine much of my life and all of my faith.

As I sit here today, I can still feel the anger and disappointment I have so often felt and blamed on God and yet, I can also honestly wonder how I could have ever felt that way at all. Maybe the first thing I needed to learn was that you never get there. It’s not an item on next Tuesday’s to-do list that you can check off. The journey’s never over, the refining of faith a lifelong quest that never ends.

I grew up in a Christian home with parents who took me to church and taught me about Jesus. I saw my father study God’s Word and struggle to teach others. I watched him pray, sometimes without ceasing, as he asked God to guide him and give him the understanding he needed. I never once saw him when he ever believed himself adequate or worthy. My father was, and still is, the smartest man I’ve ever known. Highly educated and successful in his career, I can remember being confused by the humbleness I saw in him.

My mother too had the kind of faith I’ve rarely seen and envy.She just quite simply took God at His word. She never questioned his judgment or doubted his love for her. I don’t know how many hours she spent on her knees praying for us both as children and as adults, or how many nights she stayed up praying for our safe return home. It’s been said that there is nothing more powerful on earth than a mother’s prayer. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that it was her intercession that protected us all those years and that always brought us safely home.

I never really questioned what I believed. I believed what I was taught to believe and what I knew my parents believed. God was on His throne, Jesus died for my sins, and one day I would go to Heaven. Yep, that just about covered it. We said grace at every meal and prayers before going to bed. Predictably, as I got older I continued to rely on the faith I’d been taught, on my parents’ faith. It was so much easier than reading God’s word myself or talking to Him in anything other than well-worn clichés and memorized catch phrases.

When my son was born, I continued to emulate what I had seen in my parents. I took him to church and to Bible School, read him Bible stories at bedtime, and taught him how to pray. I have vivid memories of my little boy, kneeling by his bed with his tiny hands folded, talking to God. And I spent the same countless hours praying for him that my mother had spent praying for me, asking so much of God. Giving back so little.

I think somewhere, buried deep in my subconscious, I never truly believed that anything really really bad was ever going to happen. I don’t mean the normal disappointments of life or even the big ones. I mean the permanent, life altering, nothing is ever going to be the same, things. God just wouldn’t do that. Or so I thought.

And then He did. Or at least that’s what I believed at the time. It was so easy, so very easy to blame Him, the God I had loved my whole life and who I thought loved me. Hadn’t I been taught He was all-powerful? That He could do anything He wanted? Hadn’t I asked Him to intervene, to please just DO something? Hadn’t I even begged? But God said no.

And I said, fine. Actually I said a lot more than that. At that moment, I lost all memory of the times He’d said yes; of all the times He’d protected and comforted and given me exactly what I’d asked for. I forgot that He’d done all that simply because I asked. I’d certainly done nothing to deserve it and had barely even thanked Him for it. But now, I thought of none of that.I was hurt, and I was mad, so very very mad. And can I tell you something? There is nothing that blinds quite so completely as righteous anger. How could He? Why would He?

There were oceans of tears and dozens of rants that even at the time made no real sense. And in that pain and darkness, when the rage subsided, I decided I was done with God. It wasn’t that I no longer believed in Him. I absolutely still believed in Him. Hadn’t I just seen what He was capable of? I just no longer wanted to talk to Him. Our relationship was over.

Pretty arrogant huh? What I didn’t realize then that I know now, and will be forever sorry for, is that it had always been a one-sided relationship. God did all the work. I only showed up when I needed something. I only talked to Him in parroted platitudes and sleepy laundry lists of what I wanted. I’m ashamed of that now, very ashamed. But then? I was done.

And for two years, I ignored God. I was honestly too scared of Him to do much more than that. I stopped railing at Him, I stopped crying over Him, I just stopped. What breaks my heart today is that I broke His. It’s not an easy thing to know that you’ve broken the heart of God. But I did, and I did it on purpose.

Funny thing is, I may have checked out of a relationship with Him, but He never did. Looking back on those years now, I can see He was still working in my life and in the lives of those I love. He didn’t show up with grand displays of his awesome power or lightning bolts from Heaven. He showed up quietly, when I wasn’t looking. When I wouldn’t see.But He was there. And He waited.

What brought me back to God? I don’t know exactly. Part of it I think was the very foundation that I had for so many years never questioned, only obeyed. It was the faith of my parents, one of whom had suffered the same devastating loss that I had, but whose love for and faith in God never wavered. That’s hard to watch when I desperately wanted to stay high atop my self-righteous pedestal. He never got mad at anybody, least of all God. Instead, he thanked Him. Excuse me? He knelt before Him and asked only for his comfort, nothing more. He trusted Him implicitly.

There was something else that I never expected. It was the thing that put me on my knees.I missed Him. I didn’t want to, I tried very hard not to, but I missed Him. No I hadn’t expected that, and it took walking away from Him to realize it. And so I came back. And you know what? He was as happy to see me, as I was to see Him. Hard to believe isn’t it? He forgave me and welcomed me back home for the same reason He always had. Because I asked Him.

I’m learning new things about God every day now. So many things that I never knew because I never bothered to look. And I still don’t know why He said no. God knows why and that’s enough for me now. I’m still ashamed of that awful time, but in a strange way I’m also grateful for it. It opened my eyes to the character of a God I barely knew. It opened my heart to a love that I had never understood.

He forgave me the moment I asked and He no longer remembers it. I’m still having a little trouble with that one. Believing it is one thing, and I absolutely do. Accepting it is quite another. But I’ll get there. Know how I know? I’ll talk to God about it.

It feels good to say that again.