When God doesn’t answer the way you expected
“Indeed, I said to myself, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leprosy.’” ~ 2 Kings 5:11
Have you ever prayed about something and, somewhere along the way, decided exactly how God should answer? You know what I mean. You pray, “God, please take care of this,” but then in your mind you’ve already written the script. You know who should call, what they should say, which door should open, how quickly it should happen, and what the answer should look like. Then God does something completely different, and we’re standing there thinking, “Well, that’s not what I had in mind.”
That’s exactly what happened to Naaman in today’s scripture reading. Naaman was a mighty commander of the Syrian army, a respected man with position, authority, and success. But he had one problem he couldn’t solve with any of those things. He had leprosy. When he heard that the prophet Elisha could help him, he traveled to Elisha’s house expecting a very specific kind of miracle.
Naaman had a picture in his mind of what his healing should look like. He expected Elisha to come outside, call on the name of the Lord, wave his hand over the affected area, and perform some dramatic miracle. Honestly, Naaman had already planned the service. He just needed Elisha to follow the program.
Instead, Elisha didn’t even come outside. He sent a messenger with a simple instruction, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times.” Naaman was furious. Why? Because God didn’t answer the way Naaman thought He should. Isn’t that where we sometimes find ourselves? We believe God can answer our prayers, but we also have a pretty good idea of what that answer is supposed to look like.
Maybe you’re praying for God to change a situation, but you’ve already decided exactly how He needs to change it. Maybe you’re asking Him to open a door, but you’ve already chosen which door. Maybe you’re praying for a relationship to be restored, but you’ve already decided what the other person needs to say. Maybe you’re asking God for provision, but you’ve already determined where the money should come from. We believe God can answer but many times we want to manage the delivery.
This passage shows us some powerful truths about what happens when God’s answer doesn’t look anything like the answer we imagined.
Here are three lessons to help us remember God isn’t obligated to follow the script we wrote for Him. His ways are higher than ours, and sometimes the very thing that frustrates us about His answer is the thing He wants to use to grow our faith.
1. Your expectation of how God should move can keep you from seeing how He is moving in the situation.
Naaman arrived with horses, chariots, servants, gifts, and an impressive reputation. He was expecting an impressive miracle to match the impressive entrance. Instead, Elisha sent a messenger to the door. Naaman probably thought, “Wait, that’s it? I’m the commander of an army, and you’re sending a messenger?”
Sometimes we can have the same attitude with God. We think our situation deserves a big answer because it’s a big situation. We want the dramatic breakthrough, the unmistakable sign, the moment where everything suddenly makes sense. But God doesn’t always work in dramatic ways.
Sometimes He answers through a simple conversation. Sometimes through a Scripture we’ve read a hundred times. Sometimes through a person who says something at exactly the right time. Sometimes through a closed door. Sometimes through a slow process that requires us to keep trusting Him one day at a time. We need to be careful not to miss God’s answer simply because it doesn’t look like what we expected.
Maybe you’ve been praying for direction and you’re waiting for God to send a giant neon sign from heaven. Meanwhile, He’s already given you wisdom through His Word, godly counsel, and the next step right in front of you. Maybe you’re praying for God to change someone else, but He’s starting by changing something in you. Maybe you’re asking God to remove an obstacle, and instead He’s giving you strength to walk through it.
God’s answer may not look like what you pictured, but that doesn’t mean He’s not answering. Ask yourself, “Am I looking for God’s answer, or am I looking for my preferred answer?” Those are two very different things.
2. Sometimes the simple instruction is the doorway to the miracle
Naaman’s instruction wasn’t complicated. “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times.” But simple doesn’t always mean easy. Naaman had a problem with the instruction because it offended his expectations. He even named rivers he thought were better than the Jordan. He basically said, “If I’m going to wash in a river, surely there are better rivers than that one.”
We can smile at Naaman, but we can also recognize ourselves in him. God may give us an instruction that seems too ordinary for the problem we’re facing. Forgive. Wait. Pray. Give. Serve. Apologize. Stay. Go. Trust.
Sometimes it seems like if God were to give a complicated answer it would be more powerful. But God may ask us to do something very simple that requires a whole lot of trust. Maybe you’re praying for peace, but God is asking you to stop replaying the situation in your mind and give it to Him. Maybe you’re praying for restoration in a relationship, but God is asking you to make the first move and have an honest conversation. Maybe you’re praying for a new opportunity, but God is asking you to faithfully serve where you are right now. Maybe you’re praying for direction, but God has already given you the next step and you’re waiting for the next ten.
We often want the entire staircase when God is only asking us to take the next step. Naaman had to get into the Jordan. The miracle didn’t happen while he stood on the bank arguing with God. Most often, obedience has to happen before understanding comes.
3. Humility can open the door to what pride would have kept you from
Naaman eventually listened to the servants who encouraged him to follow Elisha’s instruction. He went down to the Jordan, dipped himself seven times, and his flesh was restored. Think about what almost happened. Naaman almost walked away from his miracle because the answer didn’t look impressive enough. Pride nearly convinced him that he knew better than God’s instruction.
That should get our attention. Sometimes our biggest obstacle isn’t the situation we’re praying about. Sometimes it’s our insistence that God answer it our way. Humility says, “God, I don’t understand this, but I trust You.” Pride says, “God, here’s how I think You should handle this.” Humility says, “I’ll obey even when I don’t understand.” Pride says, “I’ll obey when the plan makes sense to me.” Humility says, “Your way is better.” That’s not always easy.
Maybe you’re waiting for an answer that isn’t coming in the timeframe you expected. Maybe you’ve been asking God to change your circumstances, but He’s been asking you to change your response to those circumstances.
Maybe you wanted the apology, but God is teaching you forgiveness. Maybe you wanted the promotion, but God is teaching you faithfulness. Maybe you wanted the relationship, but God is teaching you contentment. Maybe you wanted the immediate breakthrough, but God is teaching you endurance.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask God for what we desire. We absolutely should bring our requests to Him. Scripture encourages us to pray boldly and specifically. But after we ask, we have to trust Him with the answer and just begin to thank Him for it instead of telling Him who it should come.
We can say, “God, this is what I’m asking for, but I trust You enough to let You decide what the answer should look like.” That’s where faith grows. Naaman’s story reminds us that God wasn’t only interested in healing his body. God was also dealing with his heart. The miracle wasn’t just that Naaman came out of the water healed. He came out changed.
That’s often what God is doing in us while we’re waiting for Him to change something around us. We may start a prayer asking God to change our circumstances, and somewhere along the way, God begins changing us. That’s not God ignoring our prayer. That’s God doing a deeper work than we originally asked for.
Today I want to encourage you to trust God when His answer doesn’t look like the answer you imagined. You can bring Him your requests. You can tell Him what you want. You can pray boldly and honestly. But don’t make the mistake of deciding that your idea of the answer is the only acceptable answer. God sees what you can’t see. He knows what you don’t know. He understands the whole picture when you can only see one little corner of it.
Maybe you’re standing beside your own Jordan right now, wondering why God is asking you to do something so simple. Maybe you’re frustrated because the answer isn’t happening the way you thought it would. Maybe you’ve even been tempted to walk away because God’s instructions don’t make sense to you. Don’t leave the river too soon. Don’t miss what God is doing because it doesn’t look the way you expected.
Naaman had to get past his pride, his expectations, and his preferred method before he experienced what God had for him. Sometimes our greatest breakthrough begins when we stop telling God how He needs to answer and start trusting Him with the answer. You don’t have to understand everything to obey God. You don’t have to see the whole picture to take the next step and you don’t have to know how God is going to do it to believe that He can.
So bring God your request, then release your script. Let God be God. He may answer differently than you expected, but His way is still worth trusting.
Today’s scripture reading: 2 Kings 5
1 Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but a leper.
2 And the Syrians had gone out on raids, and had brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel. She waited on Naaman’s wife.
3Then she said to her mistress, “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! For he would heal him of his leprosy.”
4And Naaman went in and told his master, saying, “Thus and thus said the girl who is from the land of Israel.”
5 Then the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.”
So he departed and took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing.
6 Then he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which said,
Now be advised, when this letter comes to you, that I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may heal him of his leprosy.
7 And it happened, when the king of Israel read the letter, that he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and make alive, that this man sends a man to me to heal him of his leprosy? Therefore please consider, and see how he seeks a quarrel with me.”
8 So it was, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Please let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.”
9 Then Naaman went with his horses and chariot, and he stood at the door of Elisha’s house.
10 And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.”
11 But Naaman became furious, and went away and said, “Indeed, I said to myself, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leprosy.’
12 Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage.
13 And his servants came near and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”
14 So he went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.
15 And he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood before him; and he said, “Indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel; now therefore, please take a gift from your servant.”
16 But he said, “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand, I will receive nothing.” And he urged him to take it, but he refused.
17 So Naaman said, “Then, if not, please let your servant be given two mule-loads of earth; for your servant will no longer offer either burnt offering or sacrifice to other gods, but to the Lord.
18 Yet in this thing may the Lord pardon your servant: when my master goes into the temple of Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my hand, and I bow down in the temple of Rimmon—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord please pardon your servant in this thing.”
19 Then he said to him, “Go in peace.” So he departed from him a short distance.
Gehazi’s Greed
20 But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, “Look, my master has spared Naaman this Syrian, while not receiving from his hands what he brought; but as the Lord lives, I will run after him and take something from him.”
21 So Gehazi pursued Naaman. When Naaman saw him running after him, he got down from the chariot to meet him, and said, “Is all well?”
22 And he said, “All is well. My master has sent me, saying, ‘Indeed, just now two young men of the sons of the prophets have come to me from the mountains of Ephraim. Please give them a talent of silver and two changes of garments.’ ”
23 So Naaman said, “Please, take two talents.” And he urged him, and bound two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of garments, and handed them to two of his servants; and they carried them on ahead of him.
24 When he came to the citadel, he took them from their hand, and stored them away in the house; then he let the men go, and they departed.
25 Now he went in and stood before his master. Elisha said to him, “Where did you go, Gehazi?”
And he said, “Your servant did not go anywhere.”
26 Then he said to him, “Did not my heart go with you when the man turned back from his chariot to meet you? Is it time to receive money and to receive clothing, olive groves and vineyards, sheep and oxen, male and female servants?
27 Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants forever.” And he went out from his presence leprous, as white as snow.
Journal:
- Is there an area of my life where I’ve already decided how God should answer my prayer?
- What am I asking God to change, and could He be asking me to allow Him to change something in me first?
- Am I willing to obey God even when His instruction seems too simple or doesn’t make sense to me?
- What is my “Jordan” right now, the place where God is asking me to take a step of obedience?
- Have I ever seen God answer a prayer differently than I expected, only to realize later that His way was better?
- What would it look like for me to pray, “God, this is what I desire, but I trust You with how You choose to answer”?
