"I asked God for direction on a relationship proposal and said no. Now someone claims I lost my "last chance." Did I do the right thing?"

A woman wrote in, twenty-seven, about a decision she already made.

She'd been getting to know a man for four months. Two weeks ago he asked her to be his girlfriend, and instead of answering, she prayed. She says she committed to following whatever answer she got. There were things to weigh — he's eleven years older, he has three daughters from two marriages that ended — and she says he's a good and caring man. Her parents told her not to go ahead and to wait on God. She prayed, the answer in her heart was no, and she said no. She says he took it well, and she closed the chapter respectfully.

Then a person she didn't know came to her and said they'd had a revelation that this man was meant for her. So she went back and prayed again, asking for one more confirmation. Same answer. No.

And when that person heard she'd turned him down anyway, they told her she was missing out on a great opportunity — and that there might never be anyone else coming into her life.

She says that triggered her anxiety and brought up fear about the future, even though she knows she acted in obedience to the answer she got.

Then her two questions. Did she do the right thing. And how does she deal with the fear of ending up alone that this comment planted.

"There might never be anyone else coming into my life."

The first question is the surface one, and it isn't really live. She prayed, twice. Her parents agreed. She weighed the actual circumstances. The man himself accepted it. Nothing in that account needs fixing, and if she came here for a ruling, she already has one from everyone who knows her.

What she actually wants is for someone to make the fear go away, and she says so in her second question. How do I deal with this.

But look at what the fear is made of, because it's not vague. A stranger told her that God had told them something, and then, when she didn't do it, told her she might be alone forever.

That's two different sentences. The first one claims to be from God. The second one is a threat about her future.

And it worked. She prayed twice and got the same answer twice, and one comment from someone she doesn't know is what's keeping her up.

So the real question isn't whether she heard God correctly. It's this. Who is allowed to tell her what's coming.

She's been handed a prediction about the rest of her life, by a stranger, in God's name. And Scripture has quite a lot to say about that — not about relationships, about people who speak for God when God hasn't spoken.

First Kings 22. Two kings, Ahab and Jehoshaphat, are deciding whether to go to war.

Ahab brings out four hundred prophets and asks them. All four hundred say go, you'll win. One of them has made iron horns and is acting it out in front of the king, saying this is how you'll push them back.

Jehoshaphat isn't satisfied. He asks whether there's another prophet they could ask. And Ahab says yes, there's one more, Micaiah — and then he says the thing that gives it away. He says he hates him, because he never prophesies good about me, but evil.

That's the tell. Ahab isn't asking who's right. He's sorting the prophets by which answer they give him.

They fetch Micaiah, and on the way the messenger coaches him. He tells him the other prophets are all saying the same thing, so say what they're saying. That's the pressure — not argument, just the weight of everyone agreeing.

Micaiah says he'll say what God tells him. Then he stands in front of the king and says the army will be scattered, with no master, and every man should go home.

The four hundred were confident, unanimous, and dramatic. The one man saying no was hated for it.

And here's the part that matters for this post. Ahab goes to war anyway. He disguises himself, which is the act of a man hedging, and a soldier who wasn't aiming at anyone draws his bow at random and hits him between the joints of his armour.

The four hundred were not lying about being certain. They were certain. They were also wrong.

Someone being sure that God told them something is not evidence. It has never been evidence. Four hundred men were sure.

Psalm 31.

In you, Yahweh, I take refuge. Let me never be disappointed. Deliver me in your righteousness. Bow down your ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be to me a strong rock, a house of defense to save me. For I have heard the slander of many, terror on every side, while they conspire together against me. They plot to take away my life. But I trust in you, Yahweh. I said, "You are my God." My times are in your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me. Make your face to shine on your servant. Save me in your loving kindness.

My times are in your hand.

That's the line, and it's an answer to her second question rather than her first.

The fear that stranger planted is a fear about time — about what's coming, about whether anything is coming, about a future she can't see. And the psalm doesn't say the future will be good. It doesn't promise her anyone. It says her times aren't held by her, and they aren't held by the person who told her they were running out.

Notice what surrounds that line, too. He's not saying it from a calm place. The lines around it are about slander, terror on every side, people talking about him. My times are in your hand is said in the middle of that, by a man who is frightened, about people who are saying things about his future.

And he says it to God, out loud, in the second person. Not: I should remember my times are in God's hands. He says it to him. You are my God. My times are in your hand.

That's the difference between the psalm and the post. She's been arguing with a stranger's sentence in her head for two weeks. The psalm takes the same fear and points it at God and says it to his face.

So if you're in this, here's the one thing to do.

Take the sentence that's been going round in your head, and say it to God instead of rehearsing it.

Not: was I right. You already prayed about that, twice. Say the fear itself. I'm afraid nobody else is coming. I'm afraid I'll be alone. My times are in your hand — I don't know what's in them.

If your own words won't come, the psalm's are there. My times are in your hand.

Nothing is promised for that. The psalm doesn't tell the man his enemies were wrong, and it doesn't tell him what's coming next.

"There might never be anyone else coming into my life."

Four hundred prophets were certain, and unanimous, and wrong. The stranger who said that to her doesn't know. Neither does she.

My times are in your hand.