ADV #085: When God Says No

Hello Greg and Jennifer,

First of all, I want to say thank you for putting my voice mail on your podcast. I was looking at your website today, and clicked on your latest podcast by accident. Since it started playing, I listened, and heard my voice mail. I am very honored that you would do that, and am still looking forward to hearing the podcasts from back then until now. Greg, I may not be that die hard of a purist, but have the intention of listing to Rosary Army and the radio versions of Catholics Next Door, but felt that listening to the current version of your podcast from back to front, as it were, would help me get a better sense of y’all.

I wanted to touch on a subject you talked about in the podcast about God saying no to your prayer. I have to say that you have put quite a bit of effort into praying unceasingly for what it is you want, and have not had any success. I am a new convert, but something I heard not long ago that struck me as I was listening to you talk about your prayer was the fact that you have truly not given it to God. What I mean by this is, He cannot do anything about it since you still want to hold on to it through praying and novena’s (sp) and such, rather than giving it truly to him. I have found that I have prayed and prayed about some things, and have not gotten any answers at all. It is when I stop praying, and leave it in His hands, that’s when answers come. Maybe the answer is not No, but He is still waiting to be able to do something about it when you truly put it in His hands.

Just in the short time I have been listening to your podcast, I have learned so much that I did not know about the Catholic faith, and feel like an infant. The whole idea of consecrating yourself is something very new to me, and something that I am rather interested in. It is something that I will be praying about tonight before I go to sleep, and then putting it into His hands to allow for discernment to happen.

I hope the both of you are doing well, and God Bless.

Nick