Monday, April 20, 2009
Slaying For His Will
Making a request in "Jesus' name" is far more than idly repeating the phrase at the close of a prayer; petitioning God "in His name" necessitates submitting our will to His."This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him." (1 John 5:14-15)
"According to His will"—the key words on which our confidence hinges. Could this be where joy is truly found—not in receiving all the answers we initially desire, but in the re-molding of all our desires after God’s? Might we have missed the chief purpose of petitioning prayer— vigorous engagement in the activity of uniting our hearts with His?
Amy Carmichael understood this well. In a deeply poignant poem, she confessed:
“And shall I pray Thee change Thy will, my Father,
Until it be according unto mine?
But no, Lord, no, that never shall be, rather
I pray Thee blend my human will with Thine.”
True prayer, then, can justly be called a kind of suicide—suicide of the fleshly will. In another poem, Amy wrote:
"I wish thy way.
And when in me myself should rise,
and long for something otherwise,
Then Lord, take sword and spear
And slay."
Amen—though the slaying of a will isn’t pretty business. It’s messy and violent and often protracted. Wills die hard. Rarely does mine go without a tooth-n-nail fight, plus some faked partings.
But only when my fleshly will is killed can there be the glorious resurrection that follows: that of a joyful, unified will with God’s.
Refocused Confidence—and Rediscovered Joy
Because God always answers prayer in accordance with His will, we have the greatest possible reason to pray with perfect confidence. Not misplaced, arrogant confidence that Christ will deliver us whatever we request, but deep, calm assurance in the fact that, “As for God, His way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: He is a buckler to all those that trust in Him” (Psalm 18:30). Even when God seems colorblind, those words ring true.
“You do not have, because you do not ask”, says James 4:2. And when you do ask, “you do not receive, because you ask wrongly”. So let us ask with great assurance, but with refocused intent: on His will, not our wills dressed up as His. God is never taken in by the sham, anyway.
At ten, I asked for God to show me His power. He did—far, far more mightily than I’d requested. My silly hangnail wasn’t healed because the negative answer to my request impressed me with the uncontainable magnitude of God— that He was never mine to attempt to harness.
And when I’ve prayed confidently on weighty matters since then, seeking the death of my will in earnest, and pleading for “His way”? Soli Deo gloria: He has still never failed to show me His power.
Follow us on Twitter!