Why God Often Says, "No"

"Have you forgotten that everything that happens is ordained by divine Providence? And if we recognise this truth how is it that we are not humbly submissive in every event both great and small to all that God wills or permits? Oh! how blind we are when we desire anything other than what God wills! He alone knows the dangers that threaten us in the future, and the helps we shall require. I am strongly persuaded that we should all be lost if God were to grant us all that we asked for, and this is why, says St. Augustine, God out of compassion for our blindness, does not always hear our prayers, and often gives us the exact contrary to what we asked Him, as being in truth better for us. Truly it seems to me that in this world nearly all of us are like people who in madness, or delirium, ask for exactly what will cause their death, and to whom it is refused out of charity, or in pity. Oh my God! if this truth were but understood, with what blind abandonment would we not submit to all the decrees of Your divine Providence!"

-from Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade Book I, Letter IX