He Asked Three Times and It Went the Other Way

He did it properly, which is what makes it hard to file.

He was not casual about it and he was not bargaining and he did not make it conditional on anything. He asked plainly, about a real thing, for about six weeks, and told two people he was doing it, which for him was unusual.

Then it got worse. Not stayed the same. Worse, in a way that was measurable, over about four months.

And the conclusion that has been sitting in the back of his head since is not that God does not exist. It is smaller and more specific and much harder to say out loud, and it is that he did something and something happened and the two of them were connected in the wrong direction.

He does not really believe that. If you asked him he would say it does not work like that, and he would mean it. It sits there anyway, in the place where things sit when they have not been said to anybody.

Paul asked three times and got a no

There is a passage where the clearest case of asking properly in the collection is refused.

For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. (2 Corinthians 12:8, King James Version)

Thrice.

He counts. Which means he was keeping track, the way a man keeps track when it is important and when the answer has not come.

And this is Paul, who had more access than almost anybody, asking about a real thing, and the answer is no.

He does not explain what it was. He does not tell anybody what he learned about the mechanics. He records the number of times he asked and the answer he got.

You are not outside the arrangement because the answer was no. 2 Corinthians 12 records the counting and the refusal without softening either, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an apostle's own no take something off a man in a front room.

And the answer he got was not about the thing

Read what he is given instead, because it is not a reason.

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

My grace is sufficient for thee.

That is not an explanation of why. It does not tell him what the thing was for, and it does not say the situation will improve.

It is a statement about supply, given to a man who asked for removal and did not get it, and he writes it down and carries it and quotes it for the rest of his life.

You are given a supply rather than a reason. 2 Corinthians 12 puts the answer in terms of grace and strength rather than of explanation, and it is His Spirit who makes an answer that does not answer the question hold anyway.

God said the explainers had it wrong

At the end of Job there is a ruling, and it is about people who tried to connect a man's situation to his conduct.

Job's friends spend chapter after chapter explaining why this is happening, and their explanations are careful and reasonable and always end with something being connected in a direction.

My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. (Job 42:7)

Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right.

The men who joined the dots are the ones He is angry with.

And a man carrying a private connection between his asking and something getting worse is doing to himself exactly what those friends did to Job.

You are doing to yourself what God said was wrong when they did it. Job 42 rules against the explainers by name, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old verdict take a private theory off a man.

Moses said it to God's face

There is a moment in Exodus where a man does what he was told and everything immediately gets worse, and what he says is not careful.

He delivers the message. The response is that the workload is doubled and the people turn on him.

And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all. (Exodus 5:22-23)

Since I came to speak in thy name, it has got worse.

He says it as an accusation and he says it directly, and God does not correct him for it. The next chapter is an answer rather than a rebuke.

You are not out of order for naming the direction it went. Exodus 5 has a man saying it got worse since he obeyed and receiving an answer rather than a correction, and it is His Spirit who makes an old complaint feel like permission.

Jesus refused the connection outright

There is a moment in John where people ask Him to join the dots and He declines to.

They point at a man born blind and ask whose fault it is. It is presented as a choice of two options and both of them are causal.

Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. (John 9:3)

Neither.

He takes the whole framework off the table. He does not pick the gentler of the two options, He rejects the shape of the question.

That is the clearest statement in the collection about the kind of arithmetic a man does in the back of his head at three in the morning.

You are not the answer to a question He refused to accept. John 9 rejects the framing rather than choosing an option inside it, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes a refusal do more than an explanation could.