No God

Lately I've been quite obsessed with closed doors.  I've been thinking a lot of all of the "nos" God has directed at me.  I've almost decided to write a list.

House after house after house..."No."

Job after job after job..."No."

Career changes..."No."

Purchases I knew I needed, conversations I was sure I needed to have and the daily times when I'm not even asking for his input and God still pipes up with "No."

Daggone.

Pithy remarks on the tip of my tongue and..."No."

I'm gonna throw down the gauntlet and..."No."

I'm gonna take a cruise, I'm gonna move far away, I'm gonna get lasix..."No, no, no."  "No."

Well, looks like I've gone ahead and made that list.  At least he didn't say, "No."

Sometimes it's utterly lovely and stand up and testify worthy when you figure out why God said "no."  Doncha love those hindsight moments when you realize that you would've changed jobs to a company that went bankrupt a year later.  Shew!  Thank you Lord for watching out for me!  Hallelujah and look what the Lord has done!

Other times, however, I'm  looking around twenty years later and I still don't get it.  Sometimes God saves us so thoroughly that we never see the train that just barely missed us.  What a lesson in humility that is.  God of the universe saves us from things that we never knew threatened us and doesn't demand we take notice. 

The ultimate, "Because I said so."

How I wish that I could be so completely obedient that I never looked back and wondered why.  What I have finally figured out is that sometimes, the value of the "no" is that the Lord is prying one more of my chubby grimy fingers from my death grip around the world.

Sometimes the "no" is just because there's no value.  Just because I need the lesson in not needing the things of this temporary life so much. 

Simple mortal woman that I am, I can sometimes be stuck in the preface. 

You know what a preface is, it's the first few pages of a book.  The ones that give you a tiny glimpse or explanation of the story but that you could skip entirely without losing anything.  That's what birth to death is, you know.  It's the preface.  It's the tiniest part, the page and a half that barely introduces the chapters that matter.  How silly to keep re-reading the preface digging for the greater meaning when it's all there starting in chapter one.  Only for us, chapter one starts when we close our eyes here and open them in heaven. 

So God says "No." 

No, you aren't going to get that job you think you want because the one you have is what you need.

No, you aren't going to buy that house because it just doesn't matter.  It's in the preface and you keep thinking you're already on chapter 10.  Move on and look for the real beginning of the story. 

No, I have something beyond imagining in store on the list of "yes."