Our sight tells us that what we see is good. Eve once saw that the fruit was good, so she took it despite the promises and warnings from God. We cannot walk by sight because often what the world shows us is false. We only see the exterior of our decisions. We walk by faith because God sees everything and knows everything.
The Bible tells us that the Apostle Paul once pleaded with the Lord three times in prayer to remove a "thorn in his flesh." Many have speculated that this was some kind of physical ailment Paul suffered from and others believe it may have been the searing guilt Paul may have experienced from his days persecuting the church; where he oversaw the deaths of Christians. In the case of Paul, the answer from God was not "wait" it was "no."
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2Corinthians 12: 7-10
Paul had been taken up to the third heavens, to paradise itself and heard "inexpressible things" which "man is not allowed to tell." Those were the surpassingly great revelations Paul refers to here. He was responsible for spreading the Gospel on three missionary journeys and eventually would write ¾ of the New Testament. These things can often lead one to pride and forgetting that it is God that provides all. Now, Paul was suffering from this messenger from Satan and according to these passages, he earnestly prayed for God to take it away. The answer from God however was "no." In order for the power of God to rest upon us, we must be so dependent upon Him as to have virtually nothing of ourselves left. We cannot lean upon our own understanding or our own strength. We cannot live by our sight. Our faith must be enough because we must always remember that His grace is sufficient for us too.
As it went for Paul, it can go for us as well. The answer may be "no" because God is using your current situation to draw you into a deeper relationship and dependence upon Him; so that His power may rest upon you in an even greater manner. Our sight may show us that God is denying us unfairly but our faith knows that He is working in us for our good; therefore His decision must not only be fair but be in our best interest. We live in the momentary but God is always about the eternal. The answer for our eternal benefit might just be "no." It was so once for Jesus Himself.
Remember, Jesus has experienced everything we will have to
deal with in this life. He also prayed earnestly once in the
And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Luke 22: 44
What a powerful word picture for the suffering Jesus went through just in preparation for what lay before Him. But just two verses earlier, Christ shows us the correct posture to take even when we believe the answer from God will be "no"
