Blake Long

Author’s Note: I forgot to write an original devotional for this morning, so I decided to do another short excerpt from my book, Taking No for an Answer. Enjoy.

God is sovereign, and I am not. That fact right there should cause an immense amount of gratitude to swell up in my heart. God’s will for our lives—his perfect will—is unchangeable. Man lives his life, but God plans it all. See for yourself in Proverbs 19:21, 16:1, 16:3-4, 16:9, and Psalm 139:16.

Scripture is pretty clear. For God to be sovereign he must be sovereign over all. Though this book isn’t about the sovereignty of God, we should be thankful for his sovereignty as it’s expressed in his perfect will. There is not one thing, not one animal, not one human invention, not one person that freely roams outside the sovereign control of God. And that is a good thing, because we serve a good God. And our good God does whatever he wants (Ps. 115:3).

We must understand that the whole Christian life is linked to the sovereignty of God. And this even comes down all the way to the practicalities of dealing with unanswered prayer.

Think of it like this. Since God is sovereign, not only should we trust that he has the best in mind for us, but we can also be thankful when he doesn’t answer our prayer. Why? Because we know, if he did, something would happen that wouldn’t be in his will for us.

If God says no outright, he does so sovereignly. If God says, “just wait,” he does so sovereignly. If God says, “that’s not the right thing to ask for,” he does so sovereignly.

But Blake, you might ask, what if he says no to my prayer asking for my suffering to abate?

This question ultimately depends on what we believe about God. This is why the sovereignty of God is the most practical doctrine we believe. Do we believe God controls everything—down to the tiniest atom? If so, we must believe he is sovereign over our suffering, or our spouse’s suffering, or our friend’s suffering. When the going gets tough, God is still sovereign. And, yes, sometimes God sovereignly says no to our pleas for suffering to end. What he wants from us in those moments is to trust him even when our world is crashing down. If that suffering leads to death, we know—more than anything else in this world—that “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).

When God says no to our prayers, take a moment to reflect on his sovereign reign and rule over all things. If he is sovereignly saying no to our prayers, there’s a reason. And we should trust him.