Word of Encouragement (12/28/2021)

The last prayer in the Book of Revelation and, therefore, the whole Bible is, “Come, Lord Jesus!” This prayer of John’s was in response to Christ’s promise: “Surely I am coming soon.” This shows in a simple but powerful way an important principle of prayer: prayer is, as we learned in our children’s catechism, “...asking him for the things he has promised in the Bible” (First Catechism, #109).

This is contrary to how people generally think of prayer. Prayer to them is an effort to get what they want, not what God has promised to give in the Bible. Obviously, they pray because they don’t like what is going on in their lives. And things must be the way they are because God is in control. So, if they pray, it must be to change God’s mind. The idea behind their prayer is, “Not God’s will but my will be done!”

What is behind that kind of approach to prayer? It reflects a fundamental distrust of God. It questions whether God is good. In fact, it assumes that God is mean and malicious, responsible for all the things that are going wrong with our lives (rather than all the ways He is suppressing our evil ways to save us from our sinful, self-destructive ways). It also assumes that we are wiser than God, whose will needs to be changed (and improved!) by our prayers and our reasoning behind them. Is that so? Those who take this approach to prayer see it as a tug of war with God, a battle of will between them and God.

The idea behind the biblical prayer is the opposite: “Not my will but Your will be done!” Jesus Himself modeled this for us in the Garden of Gethsemane. We also read in 1 John 5:14, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.” This makes sense, doesn’t it? If God is good and we are sinful, whose will should be done? (Will carrying out our sinful will be good for us?) If God is infinitely wise and we are foolish and ignorant, whose will should prevail? If God declares the end from the beginning and we know only what is in front of us, whose will should we follow?

If the biblical approach to prayer is “Not my will but Your will be done,” it is not just because God is absolute in His sovereignty; it is also because God is absolute in His goodness, and He is worthy of our trust. What more proof do we need than Jesus sacrificing Himself for our salvation while we were yet sinners (Rom. 5:8)? Those who take this approach to prayer do not see prayer as a tug of war with God but as an important part of our Christian journey to discover God’s good and perfect will: “...be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2).

As you begin today, I hope you will pray. And as you do, may the Lord cause your heart to find true rest as you entrust your life to His goodness!