When God doesn't give you what you want

When everything is going your way, it’s easy to say “God is good.” The job came through, the scan was clear, the money arrived just in time. Nobody struggles to praise God on those days.

The real test of what you love comes on the other days.

The question

Here it is, plainly:

Do I love the Giver, or only His gifts?

You find out the answer when the gift doesn’t come. When you prayed, and the answer was no. Or the answer was wait, and the waiting has gone on for years. If what you mostly loved was what God gives, those are the days you go cold. And if you’re honest, maybe you have.

What mature love says

Love starts to grow up when we learn to trust God even when we don’t understand His answers. It sounds something like this:

“Even if I don’t understand what God is doing, I still want to know Him, trust Him, and walk with Him.”

That isn’t resignation, and it isn’t pretending the loss doesn’t hurt. It’s deciding that who God is matters more than what He has given you this week.

A prophet with an empty barn

Habakkuk ends his book by imagining everything gone: no figs, no grapes, no olives, no harvest, the animals gone from the pens. For a farmer, that is everything. And then he says this:

Scripture — Habakkuk 3:17–18 (OTB)

Though the fig tree does not blossom, and there are no grapes on the vines; though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food; though the flock disappears from the fold, and there are no cattle in the stalls, yet, I will find joy in the Lord, I will delight in God my Saviour.

Yet, I will find joy in the Lord. Not in the harvest. In the Lord. That’s what it sounds like when the Giver has become the point.

Name it

Think of something you’re asking God for right now. Something real.

What am I asking God for?
If God says no, what would be hardest for me?
Can I keep trusting who God is, even if I don’t get what I want?

You may not be able to answer the last one with a yes yet. That’s all right. Being honest about it is the start of the trust.

Recite this

I want the Giver more than the gift.

Try it this week

Write down the thing you’re asking for. Under it, write one thing you know is true about God that would still be true if the answer were no. Pray both.

I’ll write it on ________________, and I’ll share it with ________________.