Not my Will

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

“Not my Will”

                Jesus prays: “Take this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done.” Luke 22:42

                “God is not a genie in a bottle and your wish is not The Circle Maker. “His command better be your wish. And until his sovereign will becomes your sanctified wish, your prayer life will be unplugged from its power supply. “         

His command.” Writes Mark Batterson in

                Sometimes in our praying we wonder if God is really listening or avoiding us, or in the worst case abandoning us because our prayers go unanswered. Then may be in time we realize that God did answer our prayers, but not the way we thought best, but in God’s better and all-knowing way.  Yet it is in that time in between we wonder if we have been left alone. Yet God promised us to never abandon us because He loves us so much.

                Did Jesus feel abandoned as he prayed and asked God to “Take this cup”? Or maybe He realized what He just asked God to do. This was Jesus’ purpose in coming to live as a human being. He is God’s Son who became the Son of Man for the sake of all people. His humanness was frightened of what was to come. Yet God heard him and the prayer coin flipped and he was ready to do what God wanted him to do; Jesus was ready to make the prophecies come true and die in our place.

                When we pray we are to do so with thanksgiving in our hearts because God makes all things possible and controls all things. Let us be reminded of this when we pray and what we are praying for. How are we praying—with praise, thanksgiving, confession and supplication? Or just an I want list? In faith we pray because we need to draw close to our creator and our saviour. In faith we need to praise God for his many blessings and to say Thank You for all that we are and what we are able to do.

Let us give thanks and praise to Christ Jesus our Saviour, because he fulfilled the prophecy, and lived, died and rose again for our sakes.

PRAYER

God of grace and love we thank you for this time in Jesus’ life when he was praying to you and was struggling. With doing what you asked or living like others. Thank you that you did not abandon him nor will you abandon us in our times of need. Enable us O God to work through our ideas of hope and what this means to us as we strive to be your faithful people. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

REFLECTION inspired by Elisa Morgan, “The Prayer coin: Reflections on Prayer” Our Daily Bread Ministries 2019