When Clarity Doesn’t Come
Learning to trust God when the answers never arrive
This reflection was originally published on Medium under the “Even Here” publication.
Read it there → Even Here
Should we pray for clarity?
It seems like the right thing to do.
You’ve just finished med school, and you’re standing at a crossroads: what specialty should you pursue? Everyone tells you to choose what you’re passionate about — but what if you’re unsure what that even is?
Your boyfriend of three years proposes. You love him, but something inside you hesitates, and you’re not sure if you’re ready — or if he’s the one.
Fast forward. You’ve been married for two years now, and after multiple rounds of fertility treatment, the hope has thinned. You’re wondering: Did God ever mean for me to be a mother?
It’s only natural to ask God for clarity.
We want certainty.
Direction.
A clear sign.
An unmistakable voice saying: This is the way — walk in it.
Who wouldn’t want to know: Is this Your will for me, Lord? Is this the path I should take? Is this the person I should marry? Is motherhood part of Your plan for me?
You pray, you listen, you wait.
But the clarity never comes.
Still, life moves forward. You choose a specialty and finish your training.
You walk away from the relationship.
You keep hoping for that two-line pregnancy test.
And in the meantime? You agonize.
You agonize over the unknowns, the second-guessing, over the decisions that shaped your life. You wonder what might have happened had you chosen differently. You wonder if you missed God’s will somewhere along the way. You grieve the absence of certainty. You pray harder, more desperately — for clarity.
But it still doesn’t come.
And so maybe, just maybe, you begin to pray differently.
Maybe the gift I need isn’t clarity, but peace.
Maybe instead of waiting for a heavenly green light, I need to trust that God has already equipped me — with freedom, with wisdom, with reason.
Maybe I need to be gracious to myself and remember that being human is not about perfect decisions but faithful living.
You pray for the kind of faith that believes God has already equipped you to decide — through His Spirit, through the wisdom you’ve cultivated, through the desires He’s shaped in your heart. You dare to believe that He isn’t withholding an answer, but inviting you into deeper trust.
You place your anchor — not in an outcome, not in certainty — but in Someone.
Even the One who hears, but doesn’t always answer the way you hoped.
And yet, even as I rest in this deeper trust, another question lingers…
How do you share Christ when you’re still struggling yourself?
How do you tell others that He is beautiful when you sometimes wonder yourself?
How do you speak of peace when your own heart is restless?
Maybe this is the mystery.
That we witness not from a place of mastery, but from a place of walking.
We share Christ not because we’ve figured Him out, but because even in our wrestling, we have tasted His kindness.
Because even when we do not understand, we know He is near.
You don’t have to offer clarity.
You can offer presence.
You can offer your story — unfinished, uncertain… but held.
You can say: I do not have all the answers, but I know the One who does. And even when He is silent, He stays.