How Can I Know When God Says No?

I’ve said myself and heard fellow believers say more times than I can count that God gives three basic answers to our prayers: 1) yes; 2) no; 3) wait/later/not right now/etc. (everyone says number three a little differently, but you get the point). A more nuanced version of these three possibilities though would acknowledge that sometimes prayer itself can alter the answers. I’m convinced that many default “no’s” have become a “yes” because of, “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man,” or sometimes, many righteous people (James 5:16). Conversely, some potential “yes’s” have become “no’s” because of people “ask[ing] amiss” or not asking at all (James 4:2–3). Importantly, an answer in that third category can become a “yes” or a “no” through the presence or absence of persistence.

Jesus taught that persistence in prayer can move God to change things. He said we should pray like a man trying to get his neighbor to help him in the middle of the night (Luke 11:5-13) or like a widow seeking justice from an uninterested, “unjust judge” (Luke 18:1–6). His point with the latter comparison isn’t that God is in any way unjust, but rather that sometimes “He bears long with” people’s requests before granting them (Luke 18:7).

Frequently, I’ve heard Christians express genuine concern over this whole “three answers” situation. It’s not because they demand a “yes” or because they aren’t prepared to wait and to persist in prayer. Instead, it’s because they are very fearful that they are praying over and pursuing something contrary to God’s desire. They deeply want to carry out the will of God in their lives and are fearful that something that doesn’t immediately come together must be against the will of God and therefore evil or wrong.  

One of the things that really muddies the water regarding this subject is a host of religious material surrounding prayer and God’s work in the world. Through blogs, books, podcasts, sermons, and songs, people are taught to anticipate something like what Paul experienced as he went about in his missionary journeys: the Holy Spirit forbidding and/or not permitting him to pursue certain courses of action (Acts 16:6–7). The speakers and authors behind this material tell people things like, “God has a plan for you,” “Look for an answer from God,” or even, “Listen for the voice of God.” Even if you believe in a “once for all delivered” message that precludes ongoing, verbal revelation from God apart from what God communicated in the apostolic age (Jude 3; cf. Galatians 1:6–9), this material can have you feeling like you can really mess up a given choice if you don’t properly read the signs and cues.

As best as I can tell, there are only two definitive times when God says, “No.”  First, you can know that God says “no” when you are praying something contrary to His will. John encourages us to keep the will of God in mind when we pray: “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14). I firmly believe this is one of those times where we can infer the inverse truth: if we ask anything against His will, He does not hear us (at least, not in the sense of hearing with an intention to answer positively as discussed in v. 15).

Of course, you may be reading this saying, “That’s exactly what I’m worried about!” However, it’s important here to pause and consider that just as there are three potential answers to prayer, there are three aspects of the will of God that we must consider when we pray:

• First, there’s the revealed will of God. This is that aspect of God’s will that God has communicated to man which today is contained in the Bible. I believe this is the very thing John has in mind in 1 John 5, as he goes on to discuss sins that shouldn’t be prayed for (cf. 1 John 5:16; the “sin unto death” there likely being any sin committed by a brother who has not submitted to God’s conditions for pardon).
• Second, there’s the final will of God. This is that aspect of God’s will that is fixed and will not be changed regardless of man’s prayer. Biblically speaking, it’s illustrated by things like God’s decision for Israel to be freed from Egyptian slavery. Pharaoh did not know it, but Moses’ request for the Israelites to go and worship in the wilderness was not negotiable. Israel would have gone free whether Pharaoh said they could or not.
• Third, there’s the circumstantial will of God. This is the aspect of God’s will that we engage when we pray. It’s illustrated by the work of Jonah in Nineveh. Nineveh’s repentance and prayer turned a decree of certain destruction into a time of mercy and grace (Jonah 3:4-10).

These three attributes of the will of God are at play when we pray. Prayer seeks (or should seek) to respect God’s revealed will and affect God’s circumstantial will.

Let me respond to a couple of objections. Someone might say, “Wasn’t Nineveh’s destruction a part of the revealed will of God?” The answer of course is yes, but a couple of things should be noted. First, it shouldn’t be discounted that there was an ongoing revelation of God to man during the time of the Bible as opposed to the situation in our time. Second, and probably more to the point, though Jonah revealed Nineveh’s destruction as God’s will, we know from elsewhere that God’s will for sinners isn’t destruction but instead is their repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Even as we think about prayers in Scripture, there’s a big difference between Jesus and Stephen praying forgiveness for their persecutors (Luke 23:34; Acts 7:60) and us praying forgiveness for a brother we see committing sin “leading to death” (i.e., sinning in knowing rebellion without repentance; 1 John 5:16; cf. 1 Corinthians 5:1-8).

Someone also might say, “If it’s so bad to pray against the will of God, isn’t it dangerous to pray about something that hasn’t been revealed”? First of all, if we only prayed the words we saw in Scripture, prayer would be robbed of the specificity that effective prayer demands. James said, “Yet you do not have because you do not ask,” and John’s earlier cited words should be considered as well, “He hears us, whatever we ask” (James 4:2; 1 John 5:15). Second, we really don’t have to worry about praying the wrong thing provided we have sought to be informed by God’s will. Paul said, “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26). Personally, I believe this text is talking about those exact moments when we hope to affect the circumstantial will of God but don’t know what the final will of God is. At the same time, I don’t think it’s limited. God doesn’t want His children to come timidly to His throne in prayer, but “boldly” (cf. Hebrews 4:16).

So, what’s the other time when God says no? Well, God says no when it really is no: when the sick person finally dies; when the job is offered to someone else; when no matter how hard you try, you simply can’t do it. Let me add though that “no,” isn’t when the doctor says, “He only has twenty four hours to live,” or the employer says, “There’s very little chance you will be offered this position,” or any situation like these. Prayer is powerful, because God is powerful (cf. James 5:16); as the hymn states, “Prayer can change the night to day.” God has oftentimes “made foolish the wisdom of this world” (1 Corinthians 1:20), and it would be foolish to take man’s “no” to the bank as though it had come from God.

So, if the word of God is silent about it in principle and in precept, and if it remains within the realm of possibility (keeping in mind, “with God all things are possible” – Matthew 19:26; Mark 10:27), pray about it. And keep praying about it, just like Jesus taught. If the road to Calvary teaches us anything, it’s that not every important path is easy, and sometimes the easy path isn’t the one we should be travelling. God will reveal His will in due time, and it may be that as relates to our prayer, “in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart” (Galatians 6:9).

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org