How familiar does this sound?
You have an opportunity that looks like it could be huge for your personal life or your business. You’ve studied it, done your homework, and are convinced that this would be the next major step for you. You consult some Christian friends, and make it focus of intense prayers. It looks like an open door that you are eager to rush through.
And then, the Lord says no, and slams the door shut.
What was that? Why did that happen?
Before we dig into this, let me share a couple of these situations from my life where God said no to something I was enthusiastic about.
The first was as a young man in my 30’s. I had created a unique video training program, and ran into a person who had a great network, a sterling reputation, and a couple of retail stores that catered to the same market. He was a well-known preacher with this as a side business. We began to discuss merging the two businesses, and had a deal sketched out. It would require me to move to Tulsa, OK. My wife and I stayed in his home there (his family was away on vacation) as we searched the real estate market for a home. We put an offer on one, contingent on the sale of ours, and headed home.
We never heard from him again. He would not return phone calls and would not correspond with me. It was as if he dropped off the earth. No explanation, no response to my calls. Nothing. I was somehow expecting something more from him. To this day, I have never heard from him. He was ghosting me before we had the term.
Clearly this deal was not going to happen. While I was intensely disappointed, I later came to see that the Lord was in this, leading me in a different direction.
Later, as I was in the early stages of my consulting practice, I had a similar experience. I met someone who had a compatible business serving the same market. We had several meetings about working together and put together an agreement. He and his wife treated my wife and to an expensive dinner to celebrate the new deal.
Then, he, like my previous proposed business partner, just disappeared. No explanation, not even the courtesy of a phone call. He would not take my calls, wouldn’t speak to me and just disappeared from my life. I would never hear from him again. No explanation, no response, no comment. He just disappeared.
Again, I felt it was a major step backward and was very disappointed at the time. Today I saw how the Lord saved me from a partnership that would have been toxic.
Over the years I had several more of these – major potential movements that looked good from my perspective, but that never came to fruition. At the time, they were incredibly disappointing, but from today’s perspective I saw that the Lord was preventing me from making a major mistake.
Here’s the most recent. A few years ago, I began to de-emphasize my speaking practice as I was at the point where I didn’t want to travel as much. As a result, I felt like I had extra time and energy to put into something else.
I have been a home wine maker for 30 years, and at one point even had a small vineyard. I’d always wanted to have a boutique winery, and it looked like this was the time. I put together a business plan, created the list of the wines we would make, and identified the equipment and vendors we would need. I registered the business, created a name, a logo, acquired the domains and developed a marketing plan.
Using that, I solicited investors and had a full complement within a few months. So, we had the plan, the details, the logo, the domains and the money. All we needed was to acquire a location and then apply for the licenses. We were just a few months away from being in business.
Over the next few months, we put offers on five different locations – and each one fell through for the weirdest of reasons. One, when he heard I was a Christian, demanded six months rent up front. Another never replied. We made an offer and they never responded. My real estate agent hounded them for weeks and they just never replied. Neither a “no” nor a counteroffer. Nothing.
Finally, we found another location and were about to make another offer. Then Covid hit. We decided it was not the time to start a new retail business and called a halt to our efforts. It didn’t take me long this time, and I immediately sensed the Lord intervening to save us from what would have been a bad investment.
In fact, that was the thread that ran through these and other similar situations. God knew the situation and the people better than I did, and each time intervened – sometimes in ways that seemed less than upright. But each time, I was providentially prevented from making a commitment that would have changed the trajectory of my career.
Here’s some other things I learned:
1. The Lord has my back. He has a plan for me, my career, and my life, and will intervene to keep me on that path.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him and who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8: 28
In each case, the “No” to the opportunity was a far more beneficial resolution than if I had gone ahead with any of them.
2. The resolution of the opportunity didn’t ever result in a quick and dramatic alternative. In other words, when one potential partnership fell apart, another one didn’t immediately arise to take its place. Rather I found myself slogging it out doing the same thing that I had done before the thwarted opportunity. It wasn’t like the Lord said “No” to this because he wanted me to take another exciting opportunity. It was a simple “No,” without a waiting open door somewhere else.
3. There were weird events associated with the thwarted opportunities. The ‘ghosting” by mature “clergy” and successful businesspeople struck me as odd. The reasons for our not signing a lease agreement for the winery. were literally unprecedented. It just didn’t seem like these things were everyday occurrences.
4. In each case, the opportunity was a pro-active effort on my part to build something additional to what I was doing. I pursued both of the joint-venture deals, and I created the winery plan. In other words, in retrospect, I see each of these as me initiating action, rather than letting the Lord develop them.
While each of these “Nos” from the Lord were, at the time, disappointing and frustrating, at this point in my life I am thankful for them. Had the Lord not intervened, my life and career may have gone in a completely different direction. Clearly the Lord had a plan for my career – to my benefit — and intervened to keep me on course.
I suspect that He operates the same way in your life.
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