WHEN GOD SAYS NO

Yahweh’s promises are YES, AMEN and TRUE! I read Deuteronomy, Psalms, Acts and every promise in the 66 and was assured; assured of love, security, heaven-bound immortality and Emmanuel’s aura. I want to trample on scorpions, prophesy in tongues and partake every fruit from the HolySpirit’s orchard. I am ready to squeeze through the narrow road and progress through my pilgrimage. But then the silence…

I gave my best, albeit it will never pan out to full-force holy. I venture and pray over what I perceive to be my calling. Then I launch, convinced that the voice propelling my wings is the wisdom you built the foundations of the earth with. The fall is harder than pride’s leap in defiance of gravity and old-age caution. I should testify of how pain has its own monopoly on parts of your body that you wished you never owned, had you been consulted. Pain grips your heart in a manner likened to Paul’s “thorn in the flesh”-the one that makes a pierced lion submit to a monkey’s fingers. Trust me, I had enough monkeys chattering and howling for my humility to know what monkey business is.

Still, I got up. I’m not one for tears but if I shed them at this phase, I must have used them to wipe off the dust. At it again, I lunged further and soared higher. This time, laugh with me, I got not only the thud of my fall but also the haha and the ooh! Have you ever re-read the Bible, armed with your evangelical telepastor’s interpretation of God’s word, backed by fervent testimonies of how it will work out? Well I have, I am proud to confess that the particular phase of confusion that I endured is over and done with. In anger, I wanted to surrender to the brews or binge in compensatory purchases. I deserted dreams that I had ventured and brooded in lamentations. There were zombies all around me settling for less but I would not have it.

Usually people in my shoes would mock my faith for trying the umpteenth time. But you don’t find a lot of size 11s around, so mock all you want. I lost fans to gain friends. I lost friends to gain acquaintances. It was an eventual tagline to my life,” Life’s too short to waste on dreams.”

Here I am asking God if He meant wait or no. I can see Canaan at a distance, through Moses’s vision and not Joshua’s eyes. Or shall I liken it to the temple in David’s dream as the voice that tells me NO! Did you mean wait, oh God Most High? I really want to do this…still NO!

Now that I hear you so clearly, above my disappointment and enthroned on your will, I contemplate whether I did not have your blessing going out.  I prayed and fasted, knowing this was it-my Goliath was about to fall. But You O Lord, saw otherwise from your seat of infinite wisdom. Humble pie tasted by the tongue that laments so bitterly is bland indeed. Now what?

I wait on you, Oh Lord. If I need the patience, I seek your grace. You are an open dam overflowing with insight, a brook that truly never runs out. You are not mean but are tactful, abundant in blessings that the human eye cannot discern. I take the no, gladly knowing that nothing on earth can compare to my mansion in heaven. I am counting my blessings, turning down the chidings and hurt and tuning in to the station of your will.