Comments on: God, our heavenly ATM machine

By: Tammy

Tammy — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:20:08 +0000

I totally agree! After I wrote, I was thinking of something else in terms of praying “…if it be your will.” I know someone (a professing Christian) who left his wife (a believer) after 16 years of marriage. The mother of the wife (also a believer) struggled with how to pray through this situation. She would say, “I know divorce is not God’s will, so shouldn’t I be able to pray for God to heal the marriage of my daughter and son-in-law and know that His will be done? If so, why isn’t God answering this prayer with a healing of their marriage since it is His will that a married man and woman remain as one?”

Along the same lines, I have been praying for years and years for the salvation of an uncle. I know that it is God’s perfect will that my uncle would be saved. After all, God says in His Word, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV)

In both these instances, I don’t think it’s necessary to pray, “…if it be Your will,” because I already know what God’s perfect will is. However, I also know that God’s perfect will includes giving us free will (including the free will to make wrong choices, such as the choice to divorce or to reject Christ’s gift of salvation). It is often referred to as God’s “perfect will” and His “permissive will.”

The way I pray in those kinds of circumstances is to still boldly ask God to bring to pass His perfect will. At the same time, I also pray that if His perfect will is not what shall be done, that He would give me peace to accept His permissive will and to trust that He will still follow through on His promise at Romans 8:28.

By: Eric Stillman

Eric Stillman — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:47:51 +0000

Thank you Tammy. I also believe that praying “if it be your will” is not a sign of weakness but is a way of preventing that which we are praying for from becoming an idol, something we value above God. We make our desires known, but we also recognize that even good things, when desired too much, can become idols that we place above God and cause us to worship them and be emotionally controlled by them and revolve our lives around them. As in your example, we pray with all our heart for God to heal our child, but we also pray for God not to allow anything, even our beloved child, to become an idol that our identity depends upon. There are many things we dearly want, but if we want any of them more than we desire God, we are in trouble, because there is nothing else that is secure in this world besides God.

By: Tammy

Tammy — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:57:32 +0000

I believe God wants us to come to Him with our requests, but that our requests need to be in line with His will. The only way for our requests to be in line with His will is if we remain in Him and His words remain in us. How do we do that? We do so by staying in constant communication with Him, by studying His Word daily, by turning away from our sins and toward God, etc. If we are abiding in Christ, then we will only ask for that which is within the will of God; and therefore, all that we ask for will be given.

On the other hand, if we are not abiding in Christ, we are less likely to recognize that which is within the will of God. Likewise, we are more prone to ask for that which is outside the will of God; therefore, we do not receive what we ask for. That is why I believe it is absolutely critical that when we pray, we also acknowledge to God, “…if it be Your will.” That is not a sign of weakness in prayer, but rather a sign of acknowledging the Sovereignty of God. I have incredible peace when I pray those words along with my requests of God, because I am ultimately asking God to answer my prayers in the way He knows is best; and I have faith that He will.

I know of a Christian woman who recently lost her oldest child. She poured out her heart to a group of us that she had prayed and prayed that God would heal her son, and yet God took him home to be with Him. She was questioning the purpose of prayer. She asked, “Why do we pray at all if He has His plan? If He knows everything that will ever happen, what difference do our prayers make?”

My answer to her was, “Prayer is spending time with the One who knows you inside and out so that you come to the point of willingly letting Him immerse you in His infinite wisdom and love from the outside, in.” God knows the best answer to our prayers. We see but a tiny piece of the puzzle called life, while He sees the entire panoramic view. He wants us to come to the point of accepting His will, no matter the outcome. Prayer helps us come to that point of accepting God’s will, not just on the outside (which the world sees), but deep within our hearts (which God sees). Only then can we truly embrace God’s promise that “…all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28 NKJV)

By: Eric Stillman

Eric Stillman — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:22:59 +0000

Thanks for your comments Laura. I think you must be right, that when Jesus says “if you remain in me”, he means something a lot more deeper and intimate than we do. He seems to mean that we can achieve a unity by which our heart and desires are in line with his, so that we begin to ask for things that are truly according to His will and no longer ask for those things which are not good for us. Perhaps, then, if we are asking for things and not receiving, it may be a sign that we need to go deeper in our relationship with Him, as our hearts are not yet in tune with His.

By: Laura Motola

Laura Motola — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:40:38 +0000

Regarding John 15:7, is it perhaps the concept that if we remain in Him, if we”practice the presence of God”, if we clothe ourselves with Him(Rom.13:14) and immerse ourselves in His Word, that “whatever we wish” will be in line with His will and purposes, and thus will be given us?
Although I set aside time every day for prayer(perhaps erring on the side of legalism), I am in the camp of feeling that God, in His sovereignty knows what I need, and isn’t going to change His mind(1 Sam.15:29).