Why God May Not Be Giving You Answers and What To Do about It

Photo by Craig Tidball

When I was growing up, we had glass back doors in our home. While the front of the house had a hospitable front porch and looked out onto the driveway there was always a certain level of being aware of what was coming and being alert. The back door was the door for family and privacy. It looked out on the back yard not so much with anticipation of someone coming but rather with the creativity of a private space to have adventures. You didn’t have to worry about who was passing or what they thought. You didn’t have to worry about expectations. The back door was the way to get directly into the kitchen, the communal place. The place where we had all of our meals and could lay on the cold floor if we felt like it. If you entered through the front door, you were greeted by the living room—a room we tried to keep tidy and respectable for guests. It was the buffer between guests and our real lives (not that there was anything distasteful to hide…the rest of it was just lived in). From the back door, you could bypass the niceties and go directly to the family room—my personal refuge with numerous, hand-me-down couches where I’d hide in the crook of one to read for hours. From the back door and through the kitchen, you could also access the hallway that led to the bedrooms. Using the back door meant: "This is home. You belong here. You're welcome here."




Photo by Wes Hicks

Sometimes when we want God to speak to us, we do what we’re biblically told to do—we knock at the door. I think in our minds Jesus only has a front door. We knock on the front door with a certain level of expectation. We expect to be greeted and served a lemonade and to sit in a coiffed parlor with proper behavior. Why are we usually knocking on Jesus’ front door? Usually it’s because we are seeking answers or directions. We need some clarity, and we expect that when we enter, it will be all business. Doesn’t God know that we didn’t come for dinner? We came to have a pleasant chat, get our next assignment, and get on with it. We are doing the logical thing in knocking on His front door. But sometimes, I think Jesus purposefully doesn’t answer His front door so that we’ll go around to the back door like the children we are. Have you ever gone to someone’s house with kids? As soon as they figure out that it looks like no one is home, the first thing they want to do is cup their eyes, press their noses against the glass, and breath heavily as they peer in to see if anyone, in fact, is in there. When that proves to be unsuccessful, they might just go ahead and bound forward around the back of the house to make sure the person isn’t doing something outside (usually with the parents in tow screeching about being polite and not trespassing). When you know that you’re welcome somewhere, you don’t have to go through the front door.


When we enter Jesus’ back door, He is inviting us not so much to receive answers as to just commune with Him. We might open our mouths to protest about staying for dinner and while we’re at it cutting up the tomatoes for the salad, but He will have none of it because the truth of the matter is that sometimes we can’t even carry out our next assignment well if we don’t get in tune with His heart. Our clarity doesn’t come so much in a folder as it comes in a long chat over a cup of coffee. We have to be willing to stay a spell if we want to hear His secrets. He doesn’t want a cold transaction. He knows that He doesn’t call us employees—He calls us friends. Friends stay for coffee cake. Friends are allowed to see the lived-in version of your house and are not confined to the ever-swept sitting room. If we want to know His strategies and want to hear His secrets, we have to start acting like friends. The question for us then becomes—do we knock on Jesus’ front door because we don’t want to let Him in through our back door? Generally, if a confidence and intimacy is shared, the invitation is mutual. Are we willing to let Him see our mess and not only that but invite Him into it? Can He peer into our refrigerators to see our leftovers? Is He welcome to help Himself to a glass of cold water? There is something special and important about being known and welcomed within the context of home.



Photo by Mitchell Henderson

Back when Raúl and I were dating, because I didn’t have a lot of friends or family in the area, he had a key to my house in case of emergencies. During that time, I was also working in a ministry about 45 minutes away and would often come home on Wednesday nights around 11pm, exhausted and hungry. So, it became a habit for Raúl to buy me some dinner and leave me notes around the house. He was never there when I got there, but it made my heart happy to know that he’d thought of my growling stomach and my sentimental heart. After a long day, it was nice to know I was loved.

The other day, I started to leave a note for Raúl—just a general “I love you, I hope you had a good day” kind of note before I headed out for the evening. And, as I considered where to leave the note to ensure that he’d see it, I started to ponder this business of how predictable we have to be for someone to know where to leave a note. Then, I started to think about where God would leave me a note if He wanted to and what exactly that says about me. For Raúl, my note was left with the television remote as I already knew that he’d get home, strip off his work clothes, and settle down to see some news before searching out something to eat. I wonder where God would leave a note in our shared home in my heart? The truth of the matter is that He leaves notes for me all the time. He knows I’m an avid reader, so He drops little tidbits into the books and Scriptures I read. But He also knows that I love quality time and good conversation, so He often hides a little something special in one small comment from a friend. Sometimes, He waits to hand me a note until I’m running, through the song I’m listening to. Regardless, He always knows where to find me, even if I’m not looking for Him. How much more special is it, then, when I am looking for Him and His notes?

I went through about a year back when I was in college where it was Christmas every day with God. I was searching for Him everywhere, and He did not disappoint. I knew what kind of a season He had me in, and because of it, every day was a treasure hunt. There was always some new gift to be discovered, but I’d miss the clues if I zoned out. How often are we waiting for our prayers to be answered, but we miss the answers because we’re camped out on the porch when God already left us a note in our lunchbox? We sit there frustrated because “Doesn’t He know that I’ve been asking for this for ages? Doesn’t He know that I can’t move forward till He tells me what He wants?!” We try to think from His perspective or convince ourselves that maybe we do already know what He wants or well, close enough, right? Or maybe we write off the idea entirely. He never answered the door, so I guess that was permission to just move forward anyway.



Photo by Tim Bish

Back when I was a kid, I used to love to leave notes, especially for my dad. I would often hide them in his pockets. And I was so excited to have a little secret that would be shared with my dad even when he was away from me at work. All day long, I’d anticipate his coming home excited to say thank you for the note. Imagine my dismay when he’d come, and I’d realize that he’d never stuck his hand in his pocket or worse, that he’d gone to work with a different coat on. Then came the hard decision of ruining the surprise for the immediate validation or waiting a bit longer for discovery. How often is God leaving us notes in our day to day that we are glossing over without a second look and how must He be holding His breath for us to discover His secrets that He’s hidden in plain sight? In the same way that I delighted over knowing that my Dad was going to be thinking about me while he was at work because I had been thinking about him enough to give him a little surprise, I think God delights over the possibility that we’ll think of Him, that we’ll look for Him, and that we’ll find Him in all of the most unique, unexpected places.

The other day, He left me a note where I was reading in Psalms, and I came across a verse that said, “Wait on the Lord. Be strong and courageous. Wait on the Lord.” And I started to ponder just how interesting it is that God would pair a direction to be strong and courageous with waiting. When we’re sitting in a doctor’s office waiting our turn, do we associate that with being courageous, or do we just pour over magazines? When we’re down to our last couple of dollars, and we’re waiting on that deposit, do we associate that with being strong or are we just worrying? We don’t really readily associate waiting with strength or bravery from the get-go. But, sometimes, the most courageous thing we can do is to wait on the Lord. And waiting on the Lord can look like coming in His back door and sitting down at the kitchen table to just visit together when we really want Him to hand us our diagnosis and plan of treatment. Waiting on the Lord means being joyful over the notes He slips in our pockets rather than demanding that He give us our five-year plan already. Being courageous in waiting on the Lord can mean being obedient to take a step forward in the fog when we have no idea how treacherous our next step could be because we can’t see that far ahead.




Can we truly call ourselves friends of God if we aren't willing to wait on and for Him? He has a right to collect His thoughts and to communicate in the way we most need even if we don't know what that is. Can we truly call ourselves friends of God if we’ve never entered by His back door? He longs to sit with us even more than He longs for our productivity. Can we truly walk in the friendship He offers us if we haven’t taken the time to know where to leave Him a note? Are we the kind of friends who send Him a Christmas card with nothing more than a signature scrawled in it? Or are we the kind of friends who He can call on in the middle of the night to pour His heart out to us? Are we the kind of friends who only call Him when we want a favor, or are we the kind of friends who already know His coffee order and anticipate when He will need a cup of joe pick-me-up enough to put it in His hands? Are we the kind of friends who only know how to talk about ourselves or do we leave Him space and silence to tell us His secrets? Do we know how to serve God with hospitality? In the midst of serving those around us, do we also take the time to offer Him a cool glass of our worship? Are we the kind of friends who make plans with Him but never follow through, or do we drop everything for Him the very first time He says our names? Does He know that He is welcome any time whether we’ve put on make-up or mopped our floors?

I, for one, can get so caught up in the things I’m doing for the Lord that I forget that He looks longingly at me wishing He could get it through my head that what He’s actually after is a trustworthy friend. The times when God feels distant or when we feel like we’re in a fog or disconnected, I think, are usually because we’ve forgotten how to relate to Him as friends. We’ve reduced Him to a boss who barks orders at us. We may have good intentions, but when we value the doing for Him more than the relationship, we may be given His strategies, but we won’t carry them forward with His heart. He wants to know that He’s invited not just for our fancy dinner parties but also for our last-minute sandwiches. He wants us to gush over His simple notes of “Daughter, dear, do you know how much I love you?” just as much as we surge forward when He gives us a new opportunity to serve.

In more than one season, God has taught me and continues to teach me that if I can't find His answers or hear His voice on an issue, it's because He's inviting me to just be His friend. Maybe that means that He can't give me an answer yet because I'm not ready to steward it with His mindset. Isn't it rare when we find a friend who can answer for us because they already know what we'd say? Doesn't it take time to reach that level of being known and knowing someone else? It's a risk for the Father to entrust His beloved children and projects and resources to us. And, I can guarantee that we don't always say what He'd say or do what He'd do despite our best intentions. Taking the time to be His friend isn't a backhanded way of getting answers. It's coming close to His heart and His presence so that He can mold us into the answers to the prayers that Jesus prays. It's not just about what to do in a job or in a ministry. It's about being ministry to some living, breathing soul just exactly as you are, as He has both created and molded you to be. If you find yourself in a season of waiting, be courageous to pursue knowing Him--and not just His next directions--and also letting yourself be deeply known. Be strong in believing that He is good above all else. Look for His notes of grace. Ask Him to fine tune your eyes to see His love notes to you before you obsess over seeing His strategies for others. Fling open that back door and tell Him with the security of a child, "I'm here to hang out with You!" He doesn't want to be a vending machine or a distant boss. He wants to be friends. Can we lay down our agendas, invest in that friendship, and show ourselves to be trustworthy? He certainly is.



Photo by Harli Marten