NO YOU CANT HAVE SCISSORS!!!

The other day I was going to get a few items from a bookshop and I decided to take my children along and grab pizza afterwards. All was going well in the bookshop until my son saw a pair of scissors and asked me to get it for him to which I responded “No you can’t have scissors - it’s dangerous”. He acted as though he did not hear or understand me and kept pleading for it. Interestingly, he even remembered his manners and said please mummy like a million times and I was so impressed by sudden display of maturity. The truth is if he had asked for something else in the same manner, I would have given him. However, he asked a hard thing as I knew that those pair of scissors he wanted will do more harm than good and so while I felt sympathy for him, I did not indulge him.

Being a child, he started crying profusely and we had to leave the mall almost immediately without going for the Pizza. He had cried so much that he slept off on the ride home so I just put him straight to bed when we got home. To my surprise at around 1am, he woke up and came to my room gently pleading for the scissor again. I managed to get him back to sleep but kept wondering why he wanted this scissor so badly and wishing that he could understand that I heard him the first time but I loved him too much to give him the scissors at this age.

While I was pondering over the experience, I learnt some valuable lessons which I want to share with you today.

1. God can answer NO to our request because He loves us. I know that this may ruffle a few theological feathers but I do believe there is some truth to it. We may have done all we know to do, prayed, fasted, believed and even sowed seeds in faith, but God could still be saying No – it’s dangerous for you. God could simply be saying I know that what you ask for though noble is not in your best interest and I can’t grant the request today. I love you too much to say Yes. The challenge is that when He says No, we are too preoccupied with our desire to hear what he is saying just as my son could not understand why I kept saying NO. As I reflected further I realised that God’s No in love is still better than Yes in anger. Recall that in Psalm106:13-15 when the Israelites rebelled against God’s plan, the bible recorded that God granted them their desires but added leanness to their souls.

2. We can still be ‘sweet’ while waiting on God, life does not have to stop for us and our loved ones. The second lesson is that sometimes we are so focused on the one request not yet granted that we lose sight of our other blessings and opportunities.  When I left home my intention for taking them along was to give them a treat, but as he was crying so much already and I could not pacify him, we had to leave hurriedly without getting the pizza. On a good day, this is something he would have wanted but he missed that opportunity and sadly so did his sister. I did not think it was fair to her but as I could not leave him alone, she also paid the price with him. I heard someone sharing a testimony about a couple who waited several years on the lord for a child and she said one thing that she loved about the couple was that they remained sweet throughout the wait. I did not understand what ‘remaining sweet’ got to do with anything until after this experience. While waiting on God, are you losing opportunities, are you making your loved ones lose opportunities and have them pay the price they know nothing about? We can learn this lesson from the Life of Elizabeth and Zachariah who the bible recorded were good people and blameless before God in spite of their childlessness (Luke 1:5-7)

3.We can still love God even when He says NO. Last lesson I learnt from this was a reminder on why we should be childlike in our relationship with God. Given how much my son wanted this scissors and the fact that I did not give it to him, you could expect that he will hate me for life or at least for a few days:-), but I was still his favourite person in the planet:-). How many times do we begrudge God when our prayers are not answered? Do we suddenly go to church less, give less and even openly question if there is a God when things don’t go our way. While I know the pain does linger the truth remains that He is God and we should still love him in spite of his response to our requests. We could learn from Job to say that indeed he is God and deserves all of our worship in spite of the circumstances.

One day when my son is older and can handle a scissor, I am sure I will give him :-) And you can trust that he probably will tire of hearing the story of how he acted as though his life depended on a scissor once upon a time:-).

I hope you were blessed through the lessons I learnt and are encouraged to trust God even when we don’t comprehend his ways.

Remain Blessed