One of the questions I've faced in my prayer life is: how do you balance praying for a particular outcome that you really want and honoring the idea that God is in control? This question comes up most urgently when you are in a situation that feels desperate and out of control - a major health concern, a threat to your closest relationships, an impending disaster. These are the times when people turn to prayer, but also the times when it can be confusing to know exactly how to pray.
My thought process goes something like this: how I should I be praying about this whole thing? If God is in control and God works all things for our good, then shouldn't I just trust that those promises apply to this situation? But on the other hand, the Bible says to pray without ceasing, to ask and it will be given you. Should we be pleading with God to give us the desire of our hearts, or should we just trust that He knows what He's doing?
It seems like both pieces ("trust God" and "ask God to do a particular thing") are important, but it's hard to see how they fit together, as they sort of seem to be at odds. So how do we balance this tension in our prayers? Tim Keller gives the best answer I've ever seen in his book "Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God". He says: we should pray for both at the same time. And he gives two examples of Jesus doing this.
The first example, the one that's really stayed in my head, is when Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. The garden is where Jesus goes to pray as Judas is betraying Him, as the soldiers are on their way to arrest Him, as He is about to be crucified. His prayer at the garden is: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." This prayer is urgent, desperate - He is sweating blood as He prays to be spared from his upcoming suffering. But in the same sentence that He asks for relief from the situation, He also submits to God's control.
This same pattern is repeated in the Lord's Prayer. Part of the prayer says, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done". When we're asking for anything good - for physical healing for loved ones, for reconciliation in relationships, for justice in heartbreaking world situations - we are asking for "thy kingdom come". But in the same breath, "thy will be done" is saying that God knows better than we do what is good. So I think this is what we are supposed to do. Pour out our hearts to God, tell him exactly what we want - but in that same prayer, submit to His control. It's not either / or - it's both, at the very same time.
Post Script: It's good for me to think about theological conundrums like this during calm times, when I'm not in the middle of suffering. This is not to say that I usually (or ever) handle my prayer life the way it is supposed to go when I am the one in the middle of an impossible situation. When Joshua was in the NICU, I spent 4 hours per day in the pumping room. I often spent that time praying. I prayed for his immediate health needs and his upcoming surgeries. If things were not looking good, I prayed that God would spare his life. There was no "thy will be done" in these prayers. There was lots of begging, lots of fear, some tears, and some anger. And honestly, if I was put in that same situation again today (or other equally difficult things), my response would not be different. I think God meets us where we are (the Psalms support this idea). I think it's good to aspire to the pattern set out for us, but at least in the hardest situations, I am very much not there yet.
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