“But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.” (Psalm 115:3)
Little Amy longed to have blue eyes instead of brown ones. Her mother had blue eyes, and Amy wanted beautiful eyes just like her. Amy’s mom had taught her that God always answers prayer. One night before she went to bed, Amy decided to pray about her eye color. She decided to pray that God would “fix” her eye color. “Father, I would be so happy if only I could have blue eyes! Please change my eyes to blue. Please, Lord!”
The next morning, Amy jumped out of bed and headed straight to the mirror to see if God had answered her prayer. To her disappointment, brown eyes were staring back at her. “Oh, the Lord didn’t do what He was supposed to do; He didn’t answer my prayer!” she thought. Amy’s mother could tell how disappointed her little girl was. She explained to Amy that “no” is still an answer. Amy’s beautiful brown eyes were a gift from God. He gave her brown eyes for a reason.
When she grew up, Amy went to India as a missionary. But the Hindu women to whom she wanted to minister were distracted by how different Amy looked from them. They would never pay attention to the Gospel message she was trying to share. Amy decided to try to fit in with the Indian people. She wore a sari, the outfit that the Indian women wore, and used coffee to stain her skin brown. “Wow!” she thought as she looked into the mirror. “I look just like an Indian woman with my dark skin and sari!” Then she looked at her eyes. Thank you, Lord, for giving me brown eyes for a wonderful reason! If my eyes were blue right now, I certainly wouldn’t look anything at all like an Indian woman.” After that, the Indian women were not so distracted by how Amy looked, and they listened carefully to her message of Jesus Christ.
The Hindus in India did not believe in God and did horrible things to little children in their temple. Amy had a desire to rescue the children from the temple and tell them about Jesus. Because she looked like the Indian women, Amy Carmichael was able to save over one thousand children in India from the awful things happening to them in the Hindu temple. Amy praised the Lord the rest of her life for doing what He wanted and giving her brown eyes.
Has God ever said “no” to your prayers? Remember that God always does what’s best for you.
God does what He decides is best for His own glory and your good.
My Response:
» Has God ever said “no” to a prayer of mine?
» Do I really believe that God knows what is best?