Here’s a weird spin on perhaps a classic global-worker question. What’s a prayer of yours God hasn’t answered like you thought? 

Of all the Muslim refugee students I taught, for example, I know of only one who professed faith. Yet faithfulness looked like continuing to teach, to “sow.”  

One of the verses weirdly ricocheting in my head in this is Samuel’s words to Saul: “Rebellion is like the sin of divination” (1 Samuel 15:23). Rebellion is on par with fortune-telling, and vice-versa. 

Rebellion obviously moves against God: “I want to do what I want.”  

But divination attempts to read the tea leaves–to find out what is going to happen. It’s leaning on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6), moving away from trust and into more control than God’s given.

I think of Jesus’ words to Peter, when Peter questioned if John would die the same way Peter would: “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” 

What God’s doing in each of our stories is unique to His particular plan for us. 

Yet it’s tempting to offer a lot of interpretation to our own reality: Is this success or failure? We’re trying to piece together a story about why things are this way. But that story tells a lot more about us than the unknowns. (Consider Job, who never knew of a cosmic battle that’s echoing into the 21st century.) 

We may even look at the current outcome and determine our assessment of His character. 

In my own attempts to read God’s mind, I sometimes tell myself the wrong story. And too often it’s He loves me not. 

The ninth commandment states, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16). Do I do this about God, second-guessing decisions when outcomes look bleak? 

Yes, the Holy Spirit illuminates God’s teaching and helps me to know His mind (1 Corinthians 2:16). But God still holds His secrets (Deuteronomy 29:29). I still see dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12). After all, “who can know the mind of the Lord? And who has been his counselor?” (Romans 11:34). 

Humility, Ed Welch writes, was God’s gift to Job in the middle of unanswered prayer. When “success” runs from me, God begs me to a trusting humility of mind, and faithfulness in the messy middle.