Thy will be done

by chuckofish

My mother was a very private person. She would never have asked anyone to pray for her. In fact, she kind of felt that she shouldn’t even bother God with her problems. She should deal with them herself. This is bad, non-biblical theology and it took me years to overcome my own reluctance to ask for help.

When my son had cancer, however, I asked everyone I knew to pray for him–Protestants, Catholics and Jews. He was on multiple prayer lists all over town. When his twins were born at 27 weeks I again went begging for prayers. When they pulled through, a devout Catholic friend who had been praying said it was a miracle, but the look on her face said she couldn’t quite believe it. Well, believe it.

Then when I had cancer the same Protestants, Catholics and Jews prayed for me. It helped me enormously knowing these friends were holding me up in prayer.

They prayed for daughter #1 when she wanted to move back to Missouri and again when she was looking for a new job a year ago. We have been praying for daughter #2 and her family to move closer to us and I am confident we shall see that come to fruition in the not-too-distant future. “The right job at the right time. Thy will be done,” as one friend said.

Life is hard. Things go wrong—in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. When they do, it is important not to bottle up your stress like my mother did. Share it with God. Share it with your Bible Study Group, your pastor, your friends.

I am no prayer warrior, but I know some women who are. Indeed, Calvinists are great ones for prayer. And they do not pray from a book. I am working on it.

Never forget that God is active, present, and involved in your life. He is always working for the good of those who love him. 

Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, 2 saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. 3 Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ 4 And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, 5 yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ”

6 Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said. 7 And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? 8 I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”

Luke 18:1-8

Keep praying. Pray in the good times as well as the bad. As Corrie Ten Boom said, “Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?”

(The painting is The Prayer before Meal, before 1740, by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin.)