If It Be Your Will - The One Year Book of Hope

If It Be Your Will

How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” –James 4:14-15

When Hope was a month old, the secretary from church called to tell me we were on the church prayer list, that they were asking people to pray that God would work a miracle and heal Hope. I told her, “That is not how we feel led to pray.” We didn’t ask God for that. It didn’t seem right. Or maybe we were afraid to pray that, to expect that, when the diagnosis seemed so sure and so grim. What we did know was that a great deal of damage had already been done to every major organ of her body.

Perhaps because Hope’s illness seemed so invisible and mysterious, it was hard for many people around us to understand why we did not cry out to heaven for healing. Because let’s face it, in the church, when someone is sick or dying, praying for God to heal is just what we do, isn’t it? It was hard for us that some people saw our reluctance to pray in this way as a lack of faith. But it had nothing to do with whether or not God had the power to heal Hope. We firmly believe that God can do anything. For us, it was more a matter of asking ourselves if this was the way we have seen God work. And more important, was it what he had planned for Hope? Did God have in mind for her a short but meaningful life, and would we be open to that as his best?

Often I see the body of Christ put so much into pursuing God for physical healing. With great boldness and passion and persistence, we cry out to God, begging for healing of the body. And in these prayers, there is often a tiny P.S. added at the end where we say, “If it be your will.” But shouldn’t we switch that around? Shouldn’t we cry out to God with boldness and passion and persistence in a prayer that says, “God, would you please accomplish your will? Would you give me a willing heart to embrace your plan and your purpose? Would you mold me into an instrument that you can use to accomplish what you have in mind?” And then, perhaps, we could add a tiny P.S. that says, “If that includes healing, we will be grateful.”

Great Healer, so often I run ahead of you, insistent that I know what is best and what you would want for my life. Teach me to trust in your love for me and your great wisdom so I will want your will for my life, no matter what.

DIGGING DEEPER