When God told me "no"

I recently started praying about something I wanted to do for God and started praying for confirmation.  That began a journey of "no" for me for the last 2 weeks.  It's not like God verbally told me "no", but there were things consistently in my path that really pointed me to "no". 

The problem is, I really wanted to do this.  After my first prayer, and the pretty definite "no", I prayed what many of us pray:  "God, are you sure?" and of course it was again... "no".  This led to a conversation of course that may have went like this:

"God, can I?"
"no"

"Is this really you?"
"yes"

"Can I?"
"no"

How about now?
"Still no."

But if I don't do this, It will be harder.  Don't you think I should?
"no"

I have to stop and laugh for a minute.  It's reminded me of my teenage son asking me me over and over for something and to make my point, I had to keep telling him "no" and I told him "no" for 30 minutes straight!  I spent alot of time listening to what I call "But dad's".  My son was trying to break me!

I think we do that with God.  We try to break Him.  We try to get Him to change His mind.  He says no and we say, "but dad"!  Imagine the whole picture now.  Have you ever looked down from an airplane at a highway?  The moving cars look like ants.  We are the small dots inside the cars.  So now, with that picture, imagine God, the creator of the universe is listening to my prayer.  Me, a little dot on the earth, pouts to the creator and He hears this dot saying "But dad!".  I know, not so bright really.  There are days I wonder why He doesn't just take His finger and squash me like a bug.  I'm glad He never does.

After I was done pouting and my "but dad's" were exhausted, I realized something.  There is a comfort when God says no and I can understand Him telling me no.  There is a comfort in knowing that He's guiding my life and not me in control. 

There were times in my life that I was more upset at God for telling me no.  I believe it was because He wasn't my first love all the time.  It's taken me time to get to this place where what I want most is Him.  The hard fact is that sometimes we can want things more than we want God. 

After putting this all together, I'm really ok with no.  I'd rather Him tell me no if that's what He wants for me.  I think sometimes, no will be hard, but in the end, He is my Father and I'll try my best to cut back on my "but dads".