Not what I will, but what you will. (Mark 14:36)When the disciples asked their Master to teach them to pray, Jesus taught them to pray like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:9,10).
In Adventures in Prayer, Catherine Marshall writes about the Prayer of Relinquishment. She had been sick with a respiratory infection for six months. The best medicine and the strongest faith seemed inacapable of bringing the desired results. She read about a missionary who, after suffering for eight years, finally transitioned from praying, Heal me. to praying, I want you even more than I want health. You decide. That night, Marshall prayed, You decide what you want for me. From that moment on, she experienced the beginning of healing in both body and spirit.
Marshall goes on to write: A demanding spirit, with self-will as its rudder, blocks prayer. . . . God absolutely refuses to violate our free will; . . . unless self-will is voluntarily given up, even God cannot move to answer prayer. [1]
This is not resigning oneself to brace for the worst, but freely saying that God knows best and that we willingly accept whatever he, in his love, sends our way. This is the prayer that God always answers, Yes.
Do you have enough faith to want what God wants?
[1] Catherine Marshall. Adventures in Prayer. (Old Tappan, NJ: Spire, 1975), 61.
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