How To Know When God Says No

When it comes to prayer, there are always difficult questions. Simple answers rarely work. One simplistic approach is to think God’s answers are either yes, no, or wait. This does address fears that God isn’t even listening, but the Scriptures affirm that He hears and answers so repeatedly it is not a difficult issue. There is a far harder question that needs to be answered, and the simple answer above does not help. The question is, “how do you know if the answer is “no” or “wait”?” This is important because if the answer is “no” further prayers are pointless. But if the answer is “wait”, then we don’t want to give up and miss the blessing.

I realized again how difficult it is to answer this question when I heard a very unhelpful answer. A preacher I know and respect was dealing with the issue of how long a person should persistent in prayer. His first answer was that if God says yes, then you can stop praying. I can’t help but say “Duh.” His next answer is the problem. He said that if God says no, then you can stop praying. I am going to give this preacher the benefit of the doubt and assume he just wanted to move on to the next point, because his answer was a non-answer. We would not even be asking the question if God told us “no.”

The main problem with his answer is that the sufficiency of scripture has been undercut again. If God speaks directly to people, then the Scripture becomes insufficient because there is other revelation that God will give you. The reality is that God only spoke directly to prophets and apostles in order to bring His Word to His people. The only exception to that is when God spoke to key players in the course of redemptive history, like Joseph or Simeon. God’s word says that there will be no more prophets or apostles until the end time. Therefore His written word is what the Spirit uses to instruct His people. The only place God says “no” or “yes” or anything else is in His written word.

So, we must go back to Scripture. What does Scripture say about knowing how long to persist in prayer? I believe the heart of the answer is found in biblical principles applied wisely. Let me offer up some examples to illustrate how we can know God says no and will not grant a request, or if we should continue praying persistently.

1) God says no to sinful prayer – God loves his people. He died for them. So there is no way He is going to say “yes” or “wait” to harmful desires. It may be as God grows you that you realize what you have been praying for is actually sin. Imagine a young lady praying that a particular guy would pursue her for marriage. But she is not thinking clearly about the reality that though he is kind and caring, he is an unbeliever. Or imagine there is a difficult person you have to work with on a church committee. You are praying that they leave or change. Your impatience and lack of love has produced this prayer and it is not God-honoring or gospel-driven. We are called to forebear and work toward a solution. Of course there are things that person needs to change, but that is true of you as well. We don’t pray for change because we are being inconvenienced.

2) God says wait to faulty-motive prayer – James 4:3says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” God is a father and loves to give good things. He is not stingy or miserly in His giving. Yet, as a wise father, He knows what truly is good, and He knows when it is good. A good thing that we love as an idol and not to the glory of God is no longer a good thing for us. It will take us a step farther from God and a step closer to misery. We should continually seek wisdom to discern our hearts. We will often find that God wants us to grow up first before we take the wheel of some pleasure. In this case, you can stop praying for that thing and start praying that God works on your motives.

3) God often says no to childish prayer – In 1 Corinthians 13:11 Paul said, “When I was a child, I used to…reason like a child.” There will be those who pray for things that are spiritually childish. That person can persistently pray, but over time God is going to grow them to a point they realize what they were praying for is just not important. I have had kids persistently plead with me for the most ridiculous things. They get fixated on some cheap toy that I know they will lose interest in before we get home from the store. But adults do the same things. They get fixated on implementing some program, or earning a certain amount of money, or being recognized for some ability. Does God give those things? Sometimes He does because He knows we are silly children. But often times, by His grace, He will grow us to a point that we realize those things are just not significant in the eternal scheme. Our persistent praying simply gives way to wisdom.

4) God often says no because of coming providence – We are called to persistently pray for biblical things. However, sometimes God knows that He is going to change the whole circumstance. While our desires are good, and our persistence is good, we find out that God changes everything so much so that wisdom says it is time to pray for different things.

5) Persistently pray for some unbelievers but not all – The most difficult reality is that in much of life we will never know if it is a “no” situation or a “wait” situation. The biggest example here is the salvation of certain people. Scripture tells us we should pray for lost people. But are we wasting time if God knows that He won’t save that person? I don’t think so. Those prayers will result in their greater guilt, but not in your wasted time. So should we pray for a lost person till they die or we die? You can, and for some people you should. However, I tend to think biblical wisdom says we are limited people with limited time. We just cannot consistently pray for every lost person we know consistently until they die. The logistics of that would get very tricky. I trust that God is going to move other Christians into that person’s life who will pray for them.

6) Persistently pray through the unknown – In matters outside of praying for the lost, we will also often be in the dark. We simply can’t know what God is doing. In these mattes we are under God’s grace. I trust God in these situations as well, that He will keep something as a burden in our heart so that we keep praying about it. For other situations, life moves on and God puts different things in front of us that we should pray for. There should be some things that you are continually bringing before God. Make sure you are doing that. But for the things that you are just not sure about, pray about them as you think of them and don’t fret over it.