Why Won’t God Answer Me?

“Wait and trust me,” He told me the first time. 

Then He told me again. “Wait and trust me.” 

Another day passed. “Wait and trust me.” 

And again. “Wait and trust me.”

But still, I want Him to answer me – as though He had not. Please God. Please. For I could not conceive of the fact that something could weigh this heavily on my heart and that God would not give me an answer. A real answer. Because if the truth be told, I just couldn’t grasp at all the idea that waiting and trusting God is His answer. 

“But God,” I want to argue. “I need to do something. Don’t you see. What should I do?” Of course I have to do something. Don’t I? “Just tell me your will, God,” I essentially say to Him virtually every day. “Don’t you want me to take this action? Or that one? Or how about this?” 

Same answer. “Wait and trust me.” 

Why don’t I hear from God? I wonder. Why isn’t He speaking to me. Shouldn’t He understand how much I want to hear His answer?

But alas I have. “Wait and trust me.” 

Why is it that it is so incredibly hard for me to understand that waiting and trusting God is His answer? The answer seems silly, but it is not. It seems simple, and it is. 

I am not trusting Him. Instead, I am walking around heavy laden. I am walking around weary from the weight I am carrying. I am tired from carrying this burden I have carried on and off for so long. So why am I carrying it? I am carrying it because I have not taken Him up on His offer to carry it for me. 

God wants me to wait. He wants me to trust Him. And, in the meantime, He wants me to lay my burden on Him. 

But what if this happens? Or what if that happens? Or what if I don’t hear your will, God, and I mess this all up. And still I carry my burden. And still I press into Him for the answer. 

There is nothing wrong with seeking God for an answer, but there is something wrong with not accepting the one He has given me. And then it dawns on me. So much dawning. So many things have to dawn on me, it seems. Because I can be slow to see. Slow to understand. What I should have seen, and understood, all along. God has been speaking. He has answered me. 

If I lay my burden on Him, and if I wait for Him tell me whatever it is He wants me to do next, and if I trust Him so that I don’t have to take the burden back from Him, I will find again the peace He has placed inside of me. But somehow that peace that passes all understanding that lies deep within my heart has become buried under the load I have carried. 

In a world of fast food everything, and hurry here and hurry there, and do this and do that, and get this done and go do that over there, I am so prone to want to get everything settled, and everything accomplished, and everything fixed right now. And in this me-me-me world, it is so easy for me to fall back into thinking that I have to do it all. Me. I. I have to do it. Now. Of course. I have lived this way for so entirely long, so altogether too long. 

And then there is God, lost in the shuffle of my rushing around and demanding my answer, reminding me. He is Lord. He is God. I don’t need to do anything at all about the situation that has weighed so heavily on my heart but this. 

Wait and trust God. 

I had the answer all along. Because God gave it to me. I just needed to open my heart and hear Him. And now that I realize His answer, I know what to do with it. 

Wait and trust Him. 

And, in the meantime, I need to carry my burden to the Lord and leave it in His loving hands. 

And rest. Because He will take care of it. 

While I wait. And while I trust Him. 

And the next time I find myself burdened because I have taken back that heavy load, and the next time I wave my fists at Him crying out for an answer, I must remember. 

Until He answers anything else, I need to stick with the answer He has already given me. 

Wait. 

And trust Him. 

For He is God!