A woman sat in her car for forty minutes outside a building she was supposed to walk into, and she did not go in.
She had prayed about it. Not lightly. She had prayed about it for a long time, and she had asked, plainly, for God to make it clear, and she had not received anything she could point to.
So she sat there with the engine off and did the thing that people do, which is to run the whole matter again from the beginning, in case there was something she had missed.
She told me afterward that at about minute thirty she stopped asking what God wanted and started asking a different question, which was whether He was going to tell her at all.
And she said the thought that came was not comforting and was not a rebuke. It was this: nobody in Scripture was ever promised the feeling I am sitting here waiting for.
She still did not go in that day. I want to say that, because the story does not have a neat middle.
The petition does not ask to be shown
Look carefully at the third line of the prayer He taught, because it is not the request most people are actually making.
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10, King James Version)
Be done. Not be shown. Not be explained. Not be made clear to me in advance so that I can agree to it.
That is a different request from the one a person in a car is making, and it is worth noticing without shame, because almost nobody has had this pointed out to them.
We ask to be shown so we can consent. The petition asks for it to be done, which is a consent given before anybody knows the content.
That is not a criticism of the way anybody prays. It is only worth seeing, because a person can spend two years believing they are praying the third petition when in fact they are asking for a preview and calling it surrender.
You have been given the harder and better request already, and it was put into an ordinary person's mouth rather than reserved for anybody advanced (Matthew 6:10), and that part belongs to the Holy Spirit, who makes that sentence a real handing over rather than a form of words.
You have been praying something braver than you realized every time you said that line, and Matthew 6 puts the doing in the request rather than the disclosing. That work is the Spirit's, and He makes a person able to mean a sentence like that.
The garden is the place to look
If anybody had a right to be shown in advance and to have the decision go their way, it was the Son in the garden, and the record of what happened is not soft.
And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. (Matthew 26:39)
Notice three things.
He asks. Specifically, plainly, for the thing He wants. He does not pretend to want something else, and He does not open with the surrender.
He asks three times. Matthew says so. The same request, repeated, which means the first two did not settle anything.
And He does not get it. The cup does not pass. The prayer that everybody quotes as the model of surrender is a prayer that received no as its answer.
You are in company you did not know you were in, and the model prayer for this was prayed by somebody who was told no (Matthew 26:39), and the Holy Spirit is the one who was with Him in that garden and is with a person in a car outside a building.
The silence is not decoded here
I want to be careful now, because this is exactly the point where articles start explaining.
I do not know why God speaks clearly about some decisions and not others. Scripture does not tell us, and where it is quiet I am going to be quiet, and anybody who hands you a reason has made it up.
What I will not do is tell you the silence is about you. That is the most common thing said in this situation and it is not in the text.
James does say one thing about asking, and it is worth reading exactly as it stands.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. (James 1:5)
Upbraideth not. He does not scold the asker. That word is in there because somebody knew we would assume He was irritated by the question.
You are not being scolded for asking again, and the verse goes out of its way to say so (James 1:5). The same Spirit is the one who receives the fourth and the fortieth asking exactly as He received the first.
So say the decision out loud, and then say the one thing you already know.
You have not been refused, and God is not withholding, and the absence of a word is not the same thing as the absence of God (James 1:5), and the Holy Spirit is present in the not-knowing rather than waiting on the far side of it.
Now the counterfeit, and it has been sitting in the car with you, so learn its shape. It says: He is silent because of something in you, other people get answers, you are not close enough. That is vague, it names you rather than an act, and its only instruction is to feel disqualified. Conviction from the Holy Spirit names one specific thing and always opens a door in the same breath.
You are held by somebody who did not upbraid the asker, and Scripture put that clause in on purpose because it knew what a praying person would assume (James 1:5), and it is His Spirit rather than your clarity who has been keeping you steady through two years of this.
This does not promise the clarity arrives. It may not, and the man who waited two years still does not know whether he chose rightly. The Son asked three times in a garden and the cup did not pass. What is settled is that the petition asks for it to be done rather than shown, that the silence is not a verdict on you, and that a person deciding without certainty is not a person deciding without God.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud, quietly if that is what tonight has. Christ is in you, and the right to speak over your own praying came with Him rather than being manufactured. God let His own Son ask three times and answered no, and the record of it was kept, so speak to the certainty you have been waiting for before you are willing to move. Say what is written, and then let it stand in His timing rather than yours.
- Certainty I keep waiting for, you are not what God promised and you are not what is holding me. The Word of God says thy will be done, and the petition asks for it to be done rather than to be shown to me first.
- Verdict that the silence is about me, you are finished in the name of Jesus. Scripture says He giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and that clause is in there because somebody knew what I would assume.
- Father, Matthew 26:39 has Your Son asking three times and not receiving what He asked. I say the decision out loud tonight and the one thing I know, and I thank You that Your Spirit is inside the not-knowing with me.
Matthew 26:39
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