DAILY DEVOTION: "Sometimes God Says No"

Day 39: Sometimes God Says No

Proverbs 16:9 “A man’s heart devises his plan, but the Lord directs his path.”

Author: Rebekah Larson

Once a teacher at Bible School told my class, “Sometimes God tells you to go from point A toward point B, never intending for you to arrive at point B, but so He can show you point C – your true destination. I did not realize when I first heard that just how much it would ring true in my life.

When I was a little girl, I used to get up and turn on the tv and watch infomercials about drilling wells in foreign countries, treating their parasite issues, and presenting the gospel to the people there. When my Dad would inevitably wake up to tell me to go to bed, I would tell him I was going to be a missionary someday. Fast forward about 10 years to age 16, when I have to choose a career path. Will I go to college, will I attend vocational high school, or will I flip hamburgers till someone decides to marry me?

Here’s the thing, I still wanted to be a missionary but lived with the assumption that I needed to be a nurse, doctor, or teacher to do that…but school and I were not a good fit. On the other hand, I had been told for 4 years straight that no daughter of Penny Taylor would ever go to the vocational school. Imagine my surprise the afternoon when my Mom woke up from a nap and asked if I had thought about attending Penta. I immediately and vehemently told her no…at which point she and my Dad decided to pray that I would not sleep that night till I decided to at least check out the school. Guess whose first words upon waking were, “Fine, I will check out the school…but I won’t go to that school”. Guess who graduated with an award for academic excellence from said vocational high school two years later.

I went to a Bible School an hour and a half north of my hometown…you might have heard of it? It was called New Tribes Bible Institute at the time and was the first in 3 phases to become a tribal missionary. I just knew my attendance there meant I would be a tribal missionary. After two years of study, though, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be a tribal missionary (or a new tribes missionary at all). My meeting with the dean of women didn’t go well, and they weren’t going to recommend I go forward with the training. 

I gave God several ideas as to what I should do next, but really, I was kind of depressed that my dream was dying. As God picked off my suggestions one by one, I finally told Him He was on His own and would have to figure this out Himself. That same day, my Mom called me all excited and asked if I had checked my email. (This was in 2002. At Bible school, I had one roommate with an AOL account, and we could use it…IF there was an open phone line on a floor of about 100 girls.) 

Long story short, my Mom enthusiastically told me about an email my Dad had sent about a ministry that delivers disaster response materials to countries in need, which then enabled the local pastors and missionaries to minister to their people. Remember the story of the little girl watching the infomercial about people helping people in need which then enabled them to hear the gospel? God did that for me.

I met Josh nine months after joining the ministry, we got married and had Ruth and Shalom while serving with Friend Ships. For the last 22 years of my life, I have been serving God in one way or another, twenty of those years alongside my best friend (married 18 years in April). Even now, Josh uses his business to bring Jesus into homes all over the New River Valley.

I made a plan to be a missionary. God wrote the path I would walk. He even had to tell me “No” sometimes so that His will would be done in my life.

Original unnamed poem by Rebekah Larson

He doesn’t always respond with a melody.
Sometimes it may seem like a discordant noise,
Sometimes with patient silence,
Sometimes in a whisper.

He does respond.
He always has an answer.
Sometimes He says yes or maybe.
Sometimes it’s a no, or a wait and see.

Sometimes the wait for an answer is painful.
Sometimes the answer comes before we ask.
Sometimes it heals, sometimes it hurts.
Sometimes…we don’t like the answer at all.

He sees and He hears.
He feels and He knows.
For He is our Father God,
And He gives only good and perfect gifts.

We don’t have to understand,
And He doesn’t have to tell us why.
Also, like a heavenly Parent,
He will sometimes let us learn the hard way.