Preparing Your Heart For The ‘If Not’ Moments

A few weeks before my mom passed away, when she still was able to walk a bit with some assistance, she and I took a short walk on a sunny, spring afternoon. In addition to their house, my parents owned the house next door. They had been doing some remodeling to it, so it was largely empty at the time. There was a couch in the living room that faced a big picture window.

Mom and I slowly walked up to the house, went in, and sat for a while on the couch while she rested. We talked about a variety of things, most of which I don’t remember. However, we touched on one topic I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Her cancer wasn’t going to go away. She was in her final decline. She had fought it hard and refused to believe, at least publicly, that she wouldn’t get better.

In that moment, she carefully and painstakingly lifted her hand to my knee and said, “I guess everyone thinks I’m going to die. What do you think?”

Friends, that was a hard moment. It’s hard even now as I close my eyes and pull it back up to the front of my memories.

Through streaming tears and with wisdom I seem to have long possessed but never felt, I said, “Mom, I think you’re in a win-win situation. Either way, you’re going to get better.”

I confess, I can’t remember exactly how she responded. The trauma of having to answer the question dominates my memory. However, I do remember the conversation veered to what if God wasn’t going to give her earthly healing. Many people were praying so hard for her. She had so much left to do. She was in the middle of projects of work. She just couldn’t believe that He would say “no” to earthly healing.

He did.

Her healing came in eternal fashion a few weeks later.

For the last several days, I’ve had the phrase, “If not, then what” stuck in my mind. I’ve been praying hard over a situation in my life that’s not health related. Then I talked to friend who asked me a similar question – again not health related – but more of a “how long until this situation is better?”

That conversation with Mom began to creep back into my thoughts, and I’m freshly reminded that sometimes it doesn’t get better. At least not in the here-and-now way we want. We often think of this “if not, then what” approach where health is concerned, but what about everything else?

What if that situation never changes? What if God’s answer is no. He isn’t a vending machine in the sky where we pop in a prayer and get the quick hit we want. Do we have the right heart posture to accept that God’s will sometimes requires the undoing of ours?

As I was thinking about this topic this week, God put the story of David and Bathsheba’s first child on my heart. You can find that story in 2 Samuel 12. David, in his position as King, just piled up the sins here. Adultery and murder topped the list. Not even David, the man after God’s own heart, could out run the consequences of his sin. He gets another man’s wife pregnant.

Through Nathan, God tells David that, though he is forgiven, the son born of that encounter will die. David prayed and fasted in the hopes that God would change his mind and spare the child. Even though David had been told what was going to happen, he still wanted the Lord to change his mind.

He didn’t. The child died.

I am moved by David’s response. When anger, embarrassment, shame, sadness, and a plethora of difficult emotions could have trumped everything, David cleaned up and gathered himself, went to the house of the Lord, and worshiped.

I don’t know David’s exact situation, but I know similar places. I know what it feels like when my will doesn’t align with God’s. I know what it feels like when God’s answer is no. I’ve been a first-hand witness on multiple occasions when earthly healing didn’t happen. I have been left trying to understand why God worked in one way and not another. I’ve wondered how long I would have to wait.

I dare say we’ve all been there. The question, not unlike my mom’s, remains. If not, then what?  What if it doesn’t go the way I want?

David experienced the “if not.” He worshiped God anyway.

Friends, the personal situation I have been praying about may not improve. It hasn’t so far. The situations you are facing today might not go the way you think they should. It might take longer than you want. God’s answer might be “no.” Worship anyway. Pray anyway. Hope anyway. Love anyway. Trust Him anyway.

Shortly after that loss, David and Bathsheba gave birth to Solomon and the Lord loved him. (2 Samuel 12:24) Solomon became exceptionally wise and a wildly prosperous king. God has a way of taking care of His people and working out things for good.

I don’t begin to understand the “whys” and “what fors” of God, but I know I can trust Him. In those final weeks, Mom clung to Psalm 23, which were the words of David. She stayed focused on verse four, and walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

Perhaps when she asked me that day about what I thought, I should have pointed her to verse six instead. The only real answer I have to “if not, then what” is “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”