May Your Will Be Done

MY FATHER IF IT IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR THIS CUP TO BE TAKEN AWAY UNLESS I DRINK IT, MAY YOUR WILL BE DONE." Matthew 26.42.

While reading through the gospels during the passion week, I was confronted with the above prayer of our dear Lord Jesus to His Father. Once again the old dilemma faced me. Should I add ‘if it is God’s will’ to ALL my prayers just because Jesus did it 'once' in Gethsemane? Over the centuries, we have floundered over this simple prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.

I come from a very pious Christian heritage where the old saints taught us that whatever you pray and ask, you must add ‘if it is Your will!’ More so if the request is serious or important! If not, it is tantamount to not submitting to God. I could understand their teaching and logic. But when I began to study the Scriptures myself, I wondered why I should follow it! Didn't Jesus promise, "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you."(Jn 15.7).

By providence, I now worship with Christians who are a bit more aggressive in their faith. We take the promises of God literally. We believe that ‘when you ask, you must fully believe that you will receive’. So you need not add, ‘if it is Your will’ to any prayer. That is of course unless you know that what you ask is against God’s will! To add to all your prayers, ‘if it is God’s will’ is to cast doubt in your mind when you pray!

But dear believer, when you pray for yourself or your parents or children when they are seriously ill, do you add, "If it is God's will" please heal? Definitely NOT. You would cry out for healing and deliverance and if I may add, without any consideration for God's will. That is human nature. That is what Jesus too did as He suffered like a human! No where in the Bible does it teach us to add ‘if it is God’s will’ to our prayers. If you do that, you will lose your earnestness in asking and limit its effectiveness. You might as well not pray but leave it all to God’s will.

Why then did Jesus finish His most urgent prayer three times with, “Yet not as I will, but as you will?" There’s a simple biblical answer. When Jesus came, He knew God’s will for Him was to die on the cross. But His suffering in Gethsemane was so great that as a human being He prayed to the Father, “if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me”. May I reverently venture to say, Jesus was asking for something He knew was 'opposed or against the will of God’. So in reverence and submission, Jesus prayed , "Father, if it is your will"!

I have been praying for seventy decades. From my experience I have learned this practical lesson. “When you pray, pray as if the answer depends on your will and fervency! (Mt 7.7) After you have prayed, trust that the answer depends on God’s will which is perfect and good and acceptable” (Rom 12.2). When God gives, it is according to His will. Thank Him! When He does not give, you know it was not God’s will. Submit to His will and still praise God. But do not forget that sometimes God condescends to change His will according to our fervent prayer. God said King Hezekiah would die of illness. But he cried and prayed. And God extended his life by fifteen years!! (2 Ki 20.5). So keep on praying and trusting God.

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, You promised, “Ask and you shall receive”. Yet it is Your will to give or to withhold. You alone know what is good and perfect and acceptable. Help me to accept both in faith. Amen.