When No Means Yes

Hi, I'm Matthew. My co-hosts, Brianna, Michael, Paul, and I have found life beyond Mormonism to be brighter than we were told it would be. Join us for discussions about our journeys from Mormon to Jesus. I'm Brianna from the Outer Brightness Podcast. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website jamesbanks.org or by visiting peace church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray. Encouraging Prayer. God offers an open invitation for His people to talk with Him at any time about anything. On Encouraging Prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the bestselling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer provides weekly biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray. And now, here's James. Today on Encouraging Prayer, we're going to talk about when no can mean yes.

James, I'm interested there. Well, we've often heard that some of God's best gifts are unanswered prayers. Sometimes it doesn't feel like that, does it? Not when you're going through it. After all, how can you know that things are going to get better later on when that thing that you're praying about, and it may be something really important to you, isn't going to work out like you asked?

That's not easy. Oh, that's so true, because it's then we really have to walk by faith, right? Maybe in ways that we really never have before.

Yeah, that's right. And if we do that, if we keep going and keep trusting God, that's when we'll begin to understand more of His goodness and faithfulness, even though we didn't receive what we asked. There's an incident in the New Testament that underscores this. John 4 tells about a day when Jesus went back to Galilee, and when He came back, a lot of people had heard about His turning water into wine and some of the miracles He had done in Jerusalem. So it was kind of like this local boy makes good, you know?

And they wanted to see Him do something else. And this man, a royal official, comes up to Jesus, and he had traveled a ways to get there, all the way from Capernaum, and he begs Him to heal his son who is really sick. And at first, Jesus thinks it sounds really hard in response. In verse 48, he says, unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe. Can you imagine how the man must have felt when he heard that? Well, yeah, like all was lost. I mean, he'd made that trip all that way for nothing from what he could see.

Exactly. But Jesus wasn't just saying that to the man. He was saying it to the crowd. So the man tells Jesus then that his son is about to die, and then Jesus turns to him and says, Go, your son will live. Now, it's over a day's walk to Capernaum where this official lived, and he starts home. And John tells us that the man took Jesus at his word, and went on his way.

But it's over a day's walk. So you can imagine that had to be hard. I mean, he's just trusting Jesus, you know, step by step. And all he has to go on is what he said to him.

Oh, that's true. He asked Jesus to come to his home and heal him. He doesn't really know Jesus. So you could imagine he could think Jesus was just telling him his son was healed to get rid of him. I mean, after all, it'd be easy to say that.

We've certainly experienced that, all of us. He didn't think that way, right? He believed Jesus.

Right. And he's still on the way home. The next day his servants meet him, and they give him the good news. You know, his son was healed the moment Jesus said he would be.

And that's what's so interesting about this. The man didn't get what he was asking for, in one sense. He was asking for Jesus to come to his home and help his son. But the end result is that he gets to see how great Jesus really is. All he has to do is say the word, and my son is healed. And everyone in his family ends up believing in him as a result.

And I think it was more than that, because later there's someone else from Capernaum. It's the centurion who has a servant who's sick. And he comes to Jesus and he says, just say the word, and he'll be healed. And Jesus says, I haven't seen such faith in all Jerusalem. So what you see here is that sometimes God says no to one thing in order to show us something even better.

Oh, that's right. Because the man was asking for his son to be healed, but he ends up with a healed son and a transformed life. Exactly. And the thing we don't want to miss in all of this is the way the man was thinking.

When you're facing something like he did, the potential death of a child, it's all-consuming. And we don't want to downplay that in the least, but what he does is he chooses to trust Jesus, even though he doesn't know for sure how things are going to work out. Right.

I mean, that's so true. He takes him at his word, so he basically believes that he's good and that what he said is going to happen. Right. So what you see is that Jesus becomes the main thing here, trusting him, resting in his word. And I think that's a key lesson for the way we pray. Are we willing to trust him even if we don't get exactly what we're asking for?

Is there room in our request, in our asking, to just rest in him, to, again, just trust him? Yeah. You know, I think it was Martin Luther who said that when God doesn't answer our request in silver, he often answers in gold. So sometimes we don't get exactly what we're asking for, but if we keep hoping in him, we'll see his kindness in some amazing ways.

Yeah. And that brings us full circle to where we started. Sometimes when we pray, no really can be yes.

I mean, that's what happened here. Yes, that God is still good. Yes, that we will see his greatness and his kindness in ways we never thought of. And I think of what, you know, we went through as we prayed for our prodigal son, and for years it seemed like nothing was happening, and no answer was coming, and things were just getting worse. But in the end, we got to see that God was preparing us to encourage others who were going through the same struggles with their own kids.

I mean, just today, you know, before the interview, I got to tell you how I received a copy of Prayers for Your Children, one of my books, written right after Prayers for Prodigals in Chinese. You know, only God could have done that. Well, and I know that, you know, that's been an answer to something that's been on your heart for a long time. It's just absolutely amazing.

Yeah, it is. And there's a new edition of Prayers for Prodigals that's going to be released next year. And I'm just so thankful for what God has done. And, you know, I never thought that that would be part of the result of our prayers for our son when he was on these prodigal paths. So, you know, again, I'm just thankful.

And that's the point I think we really need to make. God has answers to our prayers that we never thought of. That's the way it was for the man who came to Jesus that day, and that's the way it will be for us if we keep trusting him, and keep believing he is good, and keep loving him, even when the answers we're asking for don't seem to come.

We'll see then that he himself is the best answer, because he gives us more of himself, and we'll be blessed because of him. Wow. Yeah.

I mean, you got silver, gold, and then some. Well, thanks, James. Let's pray for our listeners, you know, as we wrap this up. So, Jesus, thank you for everybody listening and for the prayers that they're wondering about. Lord, we see how good you are in this.

And we can see, wow, there could be even more than we ever hoped that you're doing. So, Lord, help us to just trust and believe and rest right there. And I ask this in Jesus' name. Yes, Lord. And we praise you that you are able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. And so we look to you, and we love you for you, in your name.

Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray. Thank you, Lord. Say, what would you do if you were a new Christian and you didn't have a Bible?

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You know, you would pray that someone, anyone would bring you a Bible. And that's exactly the way it is for literally millions of Christians around the world. They're part of our spiritual family. They're new to the faith.

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