Just
a tiny little child
Three years old,
And a
mother with a heart
All of gold.
Often
did that mother say,
“Jesus
hears us when we pray,
For
He’s never far away;
And He always answers.”
Now,
that tiny little child
Had brown eyes,
And
she wanted blue instead
Like blue skies.
For
her mother’s eyes were blue
Like
forget-me-nots. She knew
All
her mother said was true.
Jesus always answered.
So
she prayed for two blue eyes,
Said, “Good night,”
Went
to sleep in deep content
And delight.
Woke
up early, climbed a chair
By a
mirror. Where, oh where
Could
the blue eyes be? Not there!
Jesus hadn’t answered.
Hadn’t
answered her at all!
Never more
Could
she pray – her eyes were brown
As before.
Did a
little soft wind blow?
Came
a whisper soft and low,
“Jesus
answered. He said, ‘No’;
Isn’t ‘NO’ an answer?”
(Amy
Carmichael, “Jesus Always Answers (An incident from Amy’s childhood)”)
As a
very young girl, Amy Carmichael learned the simple lesson we so hate to
learn: sometimes Jesus answers,
“No.” Sometimes this devastates us,
especially if we believed with all our heart we were praying according to God’s
will. The tempter moves in to accuse God
to us, just as he did to Eve. If we
listen to his lies and believe the Lord
has let us down or withheld our best, if we believe He is less than strong or
less than loving, we may like young Amy give up on prayer for a time.
Beloved,
let us press on in prayer! Let us
persevere to learn the corollary to “Jesus always answers”; He always answers
BEST. O. Hallesby writes, “God is
merciful even when He declines to give us things that we ask of Him. . . . we need to learn this lesson over and over
again, because we forget so easily. We
have by nature a great deal of confidence in ourselves and think we know best
what is good for us. And when God thinks
differently in the matter, we suspect immediately that He is not concerned
about us” (Prayer, 134).
In
Amy’s case, the brown eyes she so disliked proved essential in her missionary career, when
disguising herself as a Hindu woman was the only way to rescue a child from
temple prostitution. Even Paul heard a
three-fold “No” to his pleas that his thorn be removed, so that he would more
deeply know the sufficiency of God’s grace and see His greater glory. In hindsight, neither would have traded the
blessings of the “No.” Let us follow
their example and trust enough to say, “I am not offended with Thee.”
Teach
me to remember, Lord,
When
Thou dost answer, “No,”
Thou
also sayest, soft and tender,
“Child,
I love thee so.
And
though the way to thee seems hard,
Desire
withheld, so sweet,
For
thee I’ve something better still,
So
trust, and wait on Me.”
~crlm
