We’ve all been there. We pray and pray, and it seems God’s answer is no. When that happens, here’s what I encourage you to do:
1. Trust his wisdom. He always knows what’s right. He is, in fact, the standard for right.
2. Trust his heart. He loves you more than you can ever know. Lean into that love.
3. Trust his long-term goal. He’s conforming you to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:29). It may be that his saying “no” right now is part of his plan to get you there.
4. Trust his grace. As he did with the apostle Paul’s request to remove his thorn (2 Cor. 12:7–10), God sometimes tells us no because he wants us to see the sufficiency of his grace.
5. Trust his timing. His no may actually be a wait, but he seldom operates according to our calendar or clock. How long he takes to answer our prayer is up to him.
6. Trust his record. Read the Bible again, and see God for who he truly is. See the validity of David’s words even when God says no: “I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous abandoned or his children begging for bread” (Ps. 37:25).
7. Check your heart. Where sin reigns (Isa. 59:1–2), when we ask selfishly (James 4:3), or when our marriage relationship is weakened (1 Peter 3:7), we cannot expect God to give us a yes response to our requests.
8. Check your ears. Pay attention to the voices you listen to if God has chosen to say no for now. Trust God and his Word—listen to him, and ignore the Enemy who wants you to doubt God today and turn away from him tomorrow.
9. Check your hands and feet. That is, keep serving God with all your being even if you don’t like God’s response to your prayers. Disobedience never leads to more answered prayer.
10. Check your knees. God’s present tense no is seldom a call to stop praying for a legitimate request. Stay on your knees, even if they’re calloused before God answers your prayer.
What would you add to this list?
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This article originally appeared on ChuckLawless.com and is reposted here by permission.