Wrestling with God when He says NO

What do you do when God says no?

Not “wait.”
Not "it's not the right timing"
Not “I have something better you can't clearly see.”

But a real… deep… sometimes confusing and painful no.

Will you trust Him in the No?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello friends, welcome back to this week's episode of We're Dealing. My name is Dawn Marie, and I'm so glad that you're here today. This is a place where life gets real, faith gets messy, and we stop pretending that we have it all together. I want to start with one question. What do you do when God says no? He doesn't say wait, he doesn't say it's not my timing, and he doesn't say I have something better for you, and you just can't see it right now. Sometimes he gives you a real deep, sometimes confusing and most definitely painful no. Let me paint a picture for you. Have you ever stood in front of a door, one that you really wanted to walk through? You tried everything in your power to open the door. You knocked, you pushed, you waited, you questioned, but nothing moved. But then there's this other kind of moment, one where the door opens wide. Something inside you feels off. Something tells you do not walk through that door. But here's the thing: we walk through the door anyway. Later, we realize I don't think this was meant for me. This is not good for me. That space right there, the tension between closed doors and forced doors, that is where the wrestling with God lives. And that is where we're going today. Today we're going to talk about what it really looks like to wrestle with God when He says no. How does our free will play into that? And why forcing outcomes can leave us empty? How do we trust Him even when we don't like the answer? So wherever you are right now, take a deep breath. You're in the right place. Wrestling with God is actually real faith. There's this moment in Scripture with a man named Jacob, and he wrestles with God all night. It's not a moment, the issue is not quickly resolved. He wrestled with God all night. And what does that tell us? It means that it was exhausting, it was messy, and it was definitely uncomfortable. I think sometimes we expect that clarity comes quickly, but sometimes, most times, wrestling takes time. And what I find so powerful in this story is that God stayed. God is not withdrawing from you because you're wrestling. If anything, he is inviting you to a deeper place with him. I want to talk about the weight of God's no. When God says no, it doesn't just feel like an answer. It can feel like loss, it can feel like rejection, it can feel like confusion, abandonment, especially when what you're asking for isn't wrong. It might even be a good thing. This is not a light topic. It's the kind of thing that hits your heart, it hits your faith, it hits your decisions, and it definitely hits your future. But it's also where some of the deepest transformation happens. So whether you're confused or you're frustrated or you're just trying to hold on, you're in the right place. Let's talk about something real for a moment. God, when he created us, gave us free will. Which means, you know this, if you really want something, you can push past God's know. You can manipulate the outcome and you can make it happen. You can find the right people and find the right resources and you can make it happen. You can take control. But sometimes when we make it happen, it doesn't bring us peace. If we really want something, we can push through. We can manipulate, we can force doors open, and we can override wisdom, ignore red flags, and still get the outcome that we're chasing. But here's the hard truth, and I've lived this myself. Just because you can make something happen doesn't mean it was God's will for you. And that is a sobering reality because sometimes when God says no, we don't wrestle with him. We actually just work around him. We convince ourselves that it's fine. We justify our decision and we call it faith when it's actually that we just want to have control. We end up getting the very thing that we wanted, but without the covering of God, the peace of God, or the protection that comes from being aligned with Him? Think about the story of Abraham and Sarah. God gave them a promise that they would have a child. They were olds, they didn't know how this was going to happen. And so what happened when it didn't happen in their timing, they stepped in and they tried to help God out. And how many times in your own life have you tried to step in and thought that you needed to help God? They created an outcome on their own, but that decision didn't just affect them. It created long-term consequences for years and years and years to come. And it was not that God abandoned them. The promise was still the promise, but they stepped out of his timing and his design. Here is the tension. God is sovereign, but he also allows us to choose. So sometimes we push past a no, we're not walking in faith, we're walking in control. Control can feel so powerful in that moment. We feel like we got the thing that we wanted. We're in control. How many times do you feel like you need to be in control? But it rarely leads to peace. Sometimes the wrestling isn't just why God did you say no? Sometimes it's do I trust him enough to not override him? Hmm. Ask yourself that question. Do I trust God enough to not override him? Because trusting God is not just about believing he can, it's about surrendering when he doesn't. So let's bring this into real life. Forcing outcomes doesn't always look obvious. Sometimes it looks like staying somewhere longer than you should. Sometimes it's saying yes when your spirit is saying no. Sometimes it's calling something God's will because it's what you won. It's your will, not God's. And here's something that might hit a little harder. You can be successful in something that God did not call you to. Imagine that. You can go your whole life being successful in something, but it's not God's plan and it's not God's purpose, and it's not God's best for your life. You can be successful in something that God did not call you to. This is the one that just I think people struggle with. It's okay to not like the outcome. There have been times in my life where I did not like the outcome. I did not like that God said no. So I want to take a breath here because this part matters deeply. You don't have to like God's answer to still trust him. I think sometimes in our faith spaces, we feel this pressure to say, it's fine, it's okay, God is good, it's all good. And yes, God is good, but that does not mean that the outcome feels good and there is a difference. Even Jesus did not like the outcome in the moment. He was in the garden, he was in anguish, he was sweating drops of blood. That was not peace, it was pain. But he still chose in the moment to surrender, not my will, but your will be done, Lord. So let's normalize this emotion. If you're in a place where you don't understand, you don't agree, and you don't like how things have turned out, you are not failing in your faith. You're human, and it's okay to be not okay for a minute. Grief is not disobedience, disappointment is not a lack of faith. The key is this do not build a home there. Don't bring your luggage, don't unpack, and don't build a home there. Feel it, process it, be honest about it, but do not stay stuck there. Grieve the things that God says no to. It's a grief, it's a loss. It's something that you really wanted, and it's okay to process it, to feel it, to be honest about it, but don't stay stuck. Let's transition to trust because eventually we come to a place where we have to decide, do I trust what I feel or do I trust who God is? And that is the turning point. Sometimes we open our Bible and we read these verses and we quote all these scriptures, but when it comes to the hard things, do we actually believe what we say we believe? Do we actually stand on the promises? Do we actually trust who God is? If you're in a season where God has said no and you're tempted to take control, you want to force the outcome and you want to make it happen anyway, do yourself a favor, take a pause. Not every open door is God's will. But this one, not every closed door is rejection. Sometimes no is just his protection. Sometimes it is preparation, and sometimes it's an invitation to trust him at a deeper level than you ever have before. So if you're sitting in disappointment right now and you're not liking the outcome and you're not understanding the plan, I want you to hear this. You are allowed to feel that. You're allowed to sit in it for a moment. But don't let that moment define your belief about God. Because even when you don't like the outcome, he is still good and he is still present and he is still working in your story. So wherever you are today, if you're wrestling, if you're grieving, if you're questioning, or maybe you're at that point where you're learning to let go, you're not alone in it, and you don't have to pretend your way through it. Stay in it. Stay with God, even in the tension. There's something that I want to share with you, a story of my own. And I'm gonna be really honest here because this is not just something that I teach, it's something that I have lived. There was a season in my life where I wanted something so deeply, so badly. It wasn't a bad thing, it wasn't unhealthy on the surface. In fact, it made sense, it made sense to me. I'd prayed about it, I asked God for it, I had tried to do things the right way, and still God was saying no, or at least not opening the door. I remember sitting in the tension thinking, God, I don't understand. This could work, this could be good, this could be great in my life, and why wouldn't you allow it? Why are you not saying yes? Why are you saying no to something that is good for me? But instead of sitting in the wrestling, I started moving, I started manipulating, and I started trying to make it happen. I told myself things like maybe God just wants me to take the initiative. Maybe that's where the faith is. And maybe I'm just supposed to push through. But if I'm really honest, it wasn't faith. It was my control. Because deep down I didn't want a different outcome. I wanted my outcome. And here's the part that hit me. I got what I was pushing for. The door opened, and things started moving. And on the outside, it looked like everything was working in my favor. But on the inside, there was no peace. There was anxiety. I felt like I was striving for the thing that I had prayed for and wanted and pushed through to get. There was this constant feeling of why does this feel so heavy? I remember having this moment with God when He gently showed me, You asked me and I answered, but you didn't like my answer and you chose differently. Not in a condemning way, but in a way that was clarifying to me. It was a hard realization because sometimes the outcome we're living in isn't because God failed us. It's because we stepped out of what he was trying to protect us from. I had to come to this place where I said, okay, God, I don't like this. I don't like how it feels. I don't understand why you said no in the first place, but I see now that you were trying to lead me somewhere different. And that required something really hard. Letting go, letting go what I had worked for, letting go of what I wanted, what I thought was best. And I'm not gonna pretend that that was easy. It felt like loss and it felt like failure, and it felt like I was starting over. But what I learned in that season was God wasn't trying to withhold something good from me. He was trying to protect me from something that wasn't aligned in my life. Even in my choosing, and even in my pushing and my manipulating, he did not leave me there. He met me in it and he actually walked me out of it. I remember saying, God, get me out of this because I don't know if I can get myself out. He began to rebuild my trust in him, and it wasn't based on the outcomes, but based on who he was. He was a good, good father. If you're listening right now and you are in that place, if you're tempted to force something, you're trying to figure out if it's faith or if it's your control. If you don't like the answer that God has given you, I get it. I really, really get it because I have been there. And I can tell you this peace will never come from forcing what God has asked you to release. Sometimes the most powerful act of faith is not making something happen. It's trusting God enough to let go. So before we close today, I just want to speak directly to you for a moment. If you're in a place where God has said no and you're sitting in the tension of that, I want you to know something. I know this is not easy. I know that this can feel confusing, and I know that it can be heartbreaking. It can feel like things do not make sense, like the path in front of you isn't the one that you would have chosen for yourself. Like you're being asked to let go of something that matters to you deeply. And that is real. But I also want to gently remind you of this. In the process and in the trust will come the greatest victory and greatest purpose that God has intended for your life. Not always in the way that you expected, and not always in the timing that you wanted, but in a way that is deeper and more refining and more aligned with who you are becoming. So do not give up in the wrestling. Do not run from the tension. Stay with him in it, because what he is building in you through this is something that cannot be taken away. I want to thank you for being here today. Truly, I want to thank you. Thank you for showing up, for leaning into hard things in life, for choosing to wrestle instead of walk away. That takes courage. If this episode spoke to you, encouraged you, or challenged you in any way, I would love for you to like, subscribe, follow. And I definitely would love to for you to share it with someone who might need it too. And as always, remember you don't have to have it all together and you don't have to hide the hard parts. God is here, He is with you. Thank you for tuning in to Word Dealing, and I'll see you next week.