Image via WikipediaThis past weekend, Glen performed a wedding ceremony for a sweet Christian friend of ours. We had come to know her when she was in her twenties and in the ten or so years since then we have never completely lost contact with her. Glen was delighted when she contacted him and asked if he would perform her wedding ceremony, especially since her wedding was on his birthday.
Doubtless our friend, whom we shall call Mary, prayed for many years for the Lord to send her a husband who loved Him. I am sure that her husband, whom we shall call John, prayed a similar prayer for a godly wife. But the answer to John’s prayer for a wife came through a lack of answer to another prayer.
You see, John was trained to be a meteorologist. However, there were no jobs available for him in his field of training. Economic times being what they were, he took whatever work he could get and for him this happened to be selling shoes. Selling shoes at the very store where Mary sold china.
Doubtless our friend, whom we shall call Mary, prayed for many years for the Lord to send her a husband who loved Him. I am sure that her husband, whom we shall call John, prayed a similar prayer for a godly wife. But the answer to John’s prayer for a wife came through a lack of answer to another prayer.
You see, John was trained to be a meteorologist. However, there were no jobs available for him in his field of training. Economic times being what they were, he took whatever work he could get and for him this happened to be selling shoes. Selling shoes at the very store where Mary sold china.
For five years John sold shoes and Mary sold china to new brides and nothing happened. Then one day, a mutual friend suggested they should date. And they did. And they did again, and again. Then they fell in love, and love led to a wedding.
Had the Lord not said “No” to John’s prayer for a meteorologist’s job, it may be that John and Mary would have never met, never have fallen in love and never have had such a beautiful wedding on the most gorgeous of October days. The Lord knew He needed them to have that shared bond of friends and work as a seed from which their relationship would grow. The “No” led to two “I do’s”.
The Lord knows not only the desires of our hearts, but exactly what it takes to bring about those desires, exactly what it takes to will and to do of His good pleasure in our lives. So the next time we are tempted to look a prayer which has for a long time had an apparent “No” for an answer, let us remember the beautiful picture of John and Mary standing at the altar. Our Lord sometimes says His best “Yes’s” in the “No’s.”
“Delight thyself also in the LORD;
and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Commit thy way unto the LORD;
trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass.”
Psalm 37:4,5
By the way, John and Mary will be living in Texas after their wedding because John is now working there as a meteorologist.
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