When God Says No

My big, self-inflicted assignment this week was to clean and rearrange my office. Part of this mammoth project was to empty out my gargantuan desk and move it to the garage, awaiting my son-in-law to take and use in his law office.

Last night Brenda was all ready to help me in this endeavor, but in the morning she woke up with one of those killer, once-a-year migraine headaches. My plans for the office and her plans to pray at church needed to be altered. We did manage to get some of the office stuff taken care of after her pain medication kicked in. When we sat down to rest afterward, Brenda reminded me of how God has changed our plans several times in the past through intuition or a pain of one kind or another. I look back through my life and remember the times when God said "no." Even though it wasn't the answer I wanted at the time, I'm now so very thankful for it.

It's hard to hear "no," especially when you're a 12-year-old and your dad says you can't go to the skating rink on Friday night with the older kids. It's hard to hear "no" when you've gathered the courage to ask a girl out on a date and she turns you down. It's hard to see your plans fall apart when you're set to purchase the home of your dreams and, for some reason, it goes to another buyer.

As an adult, I've learned to listen to God through His still, small voice—and even the bombastic voice that comes through discomfort or by way of an uneasy feeling. "No" and "yes," for that matter, can be communicated clearly if we really listen close.

When Brenda and I were first married, we took a trip to New Orleans and found ourselves wandering off the beaten path and into a dank back alley of the  French Quarter. We both felt strangely uncomfortable and sensed the instinctive need to bolt out of there, away from the shadows and the creepy spiritual vibes that seemed to reach out to us like ghostly fingers in the darkness. In fact, we ran straight to our car and left! I guess it was the goat skull and the satanic symbols that hung in a window of an old apartment that seemed to project the foreboding message: "You don't belong here!"

God usually gives us the choice to stay or flee. Many times we blame God for the consequences after diving headlong into questionable situations. The fact is, our gut can tell us a lot, and God gave us our instincts for a reason.

I read today about a recent study of participants who were forced to choose between two options based on instinct alone; they made the right call up to 90 percent of the time. Regarding the results of this study, Mark Prigg, science and health writer for the Daily Mail, writes: "Professor Marius Usher of Tel Aviv University's School of Psychological Sciences and his fellow researchers say their findings show that intuition was a surprisingly powerful and accurate tool." The findings showed, "Intuitively, the human brain has the capacity to take in many pieces of information and decide on an overall value...[and that] gut reactions can be trusted to make a quality decision."

Sometimes a headache can seem troublesome. Maybe, though—just maybe—by way of the intrusion, God is keeping us from a calamity that we would never have expected. Back in the day, when our parents told us "no," we most likely didn't understand. But it's only after becoming adults, after developing a higher sensitivity to instinctive warnings, that we understand it's for a very good reason—for our own good.

God doesn't have to explain Himself to us as he drags us by the scruff of the neck, back to the curb, just in time for an unseen car to whisk by and miss us by inches...there's simply not enough time! When God says "no," He wants to protect us, not disappoint us; He wants to bless us, not withhold from us. He may have a "yes" waiting in the wings—but we may have to wait just a little longer for it.