Be careful what you wish for...
If you could be transported back in time to be with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing what He was about to go through, and you could pray with Him, what do you think you might pray?
Would you pray for His release, for His escape, for His safety or for His life to be spared?
During our Good Friday service, two very different prayers got me thinking.
In praying for our world, we also prayed for a cessation of the violent acts, for God to intervene and prevent those thinking of further terrorism from implementing what was planned.
As we reflected on Jesus' last hours, and His prayer in the Garden, I thought about the fact that we so often pray for what we would like to see, rather than God's purpose and will coming to fruition. If the disciples had had any real inkling of what Jesus was about to undergo, I wonder whether they would have been praying that God would prevent it, that God would change the outcome. What would have happened if they had? Would Jesus have died? Would the Christian faith as we know it exist today?
When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He included the words
"Your will be done".
It is so difficult for us to see what this might look like, because we would like it to look like a 'good' outcome for us here, right now. We would like to see our will be done. And this generally means, my comfort, the comfort of my loved ones, a lack of difficulty for any of us immediately. Our prayers often boil down to "Please God, make everything nice again, for me and mine, and please do it now!"
The problem is, if God answers those prayers, are we actually missing out on greater blessings? Are we actually missing out on what God wanted to show us, to teach us, to grow in us by taking the 'easy way'?
Most of us know about the dangerous prayer of asking for patience: you generally get even more opportunities to practice! How many more circumstances and situations does God place before us to move us into better, more helpful, more Christlike behaviours and opportunities to demonstrate His love? And how often do we ask to be excused from those opportunities?
The problem is, we rarely know, much less understand the long term ramifications of so much we long for. Even though we might ask to be relieved from having to go through difficulties, how do we know that our present trials are not preparing us to cope with other future challenges, not to mention the impact our experience has on other circumstances around us? The threads are all interwoven, and each impacts the other.
Personally, I have been learning a deeper way to pray for sometime now. Much of it involves the difficult task of listening, the difficult task of laying down my will, my desire, my wants, my comfort, and waiting on God to hear what He wants to do in me and through me. It is not easy. It takes time, and it takes honesty and transparency with God.
Often I find it is more helpful to be honest about my feelings and what I want before I start to seek His way. I have to get that out of the way, otherwise self keeps popping its head up again, distracting me, causing me to respond out of my emotions again. When I pull out my stuff, my emotional response first and look at it with God, through His eyes, it becomes easier to lay it down and release it to Him. Then I am (more) ready to go His way, to see His way.
Jesus' prayer in the Garden was like this: "God, I really don't want to go through this, I am really struggling", and maybe even "I'm so scared", but never-the-less, "not My will, but Your's be done".
Underlying all our struggles with prayer is a question of trust. Do we pray because we think God needs some help working out the best way forward for us and His world, or do we pray because we want to partner with Him in what He is already doing really well without our help?