Praying for God’s will: a reflection on the Lord’s Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer comes to us in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. More specifically, it is in the middle of Jesus’ instruction about the spiritual practices of those who repent of their sins and enter the kingdom. Those practices are:

• Showing charity (Matthew 6:1-4) – Now that we know God’s mercy, we don’t say “Look everyone, I’m giving someone a handout!” Nor do we say, “Everyone must look away so that I can help this person.” We just show mercy, uncomplicatedly, because we received mercy.
• Praying (Matthew 6:5-15) – Now that we know God’s mercy, we are no longer concerned whether anyone hears us, that we are in the best possible location, or that we are righteous enough to approach God. We just pray, because God made the way possible for us to pray, and we are grateful God did.
• Fasting (Matthew 6: 16-18) – Now that we know God’s mercy, we do not make a display of fasting in order to impress someone. If we are led to fast, we just do it, aware that God already sees and loves us. The hunger pangs remind us to pray, not to tell someone we are fasting.

Perhaps we once thought the appearance and the method had to be righteous enough or displayed properly in order for a spiritual practice to be meaningful, but now that we received God’s mercy we know a religious display does not win favor with God.  Rather, we have God’s favor already. God loves us and shows us his mercy without our earning it. So, our expression of religious life is now about the relationship we have, not the one we are trying to earn. Now we can approach God on the most intimate of terms, as children do when they are properly bonded to and loved by their parents.

As we consider this prayer Jesus gives us, we do well to notice the focus of the prayer is on God rather than self. Even though human desire is acknowledged in the words of the prayer, it is clear the prayer helps the human conform their desire to God’s desire.

To help us better grasp how this prayer is one of moving closer to what God wants, I’ve paraphrased the prayer, line by line thus:

Our Father (Loving authority,)
who art in heaven (who  resides in our true home,)
Hallowed be thy name (we give you all our reverence.)
Thy kingdom come (We want to live in the society you create.)
Thy will be done (We submit ourselves to you,)
on earth (in what we see,)
as it is in heaven. (and in what is beyond our ability to perceive.)
Give us this day our daily bread, (We entrust ourselves to your supply,)
and forgive us our sins (and throw ourselves on your mercy,)
as we forgive those who sinned against us (because we show mercy to others.)
and lead us not into temptation (Spare us from desire to choose what is wrong,)
but deliver us from evil  (and spare us from the wrong others would do.)
for thine is the kingdom (Our allegiance is to you.)
and the power (Our submission is to you.)
and the glory (Our worship is offered to you,)
Forever and ever, (for all time and beyond.)
A-men. (May it be so.)

In essence, the prayer proclaims, “Do what you will God. Do what pleases you. I’m ready to bear witness to it. I’m ready to participate in it.” To pray that the Lord’s will be done is to tell God that you want his decrees to be enforced, God’s inclinations to win the day, and God’s transforming power to keep transforming.

When we pray this prayer, we can hear the echo of Psalm 19:7-14:

The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul;

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;

The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;

The judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether.

They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold;

Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover, by them Your servant is warned;

In keeping them there is great reward.

Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.

Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins;

Let them not rule over me;

Then I will be blameless,

And I shall be acquitted of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

Be acceptable in Your sight,

O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (NASU)

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Praying for the Lord’s will is not easy. Two errors can creep in:

1. A growing number of Christians believe that being loved by God means God gives them what they want, if they want it hard enough or if they think it is their right to receive it. They aren’t much interested in serving a Sovereign Lord who has wishes, decrees, inclination and who does what he pleases. Sometimes people like this even expect that you will not bring your troubles before the Lord, because that somehow validates them or brings them into being. “Don’t express your doubts!” they say, believing that it somehow grants power to evil. The only acceptable prayer, in their view, is to repeat the promises of God, not the anguish of their heart.

But the bible not only tells us we can bring every anxiety before the Lord (1 Peter 5:7), it provides examples of anxiety, grief and even anger –laden prayers, especially in the Psalms. The book of Lamentations—an entire book of the bible—is given over to such prayers, prayers that became part of the prayer book for God’s people.

2. Some Christians are too disappointed to pray. If they pray it all it is hostile or tinged with bitterness. Perhaps such a person is on the backside of the first error, and still believes God should have given them what they wanted. Maybe they discovered what God’s will is and they rejected it. Perhaps their life is so filled with disappointment or pain that they cannot imagine a loving deity. Maybe they are just dry. No words come any more.  No matter what brought the disappointment, the person believes God’s will is not something they want—not any more.

The result of these two errors is that a family of faith like this one can have people in it who want to tell God what God’s will should be, and those who are pretty certain they don’t want to do God’s will now that they have had some experience with it.

Let’s return to where we began this sermon for some perspective: praying this way is part of the list of spiritual disciplines Jesus discusses in the Sermon on the Mount. People who do God’s will give alms, fast and pray. People who do God’s will don’t keep anger against a brother. People who do God’s will strive to stay in their marriages, seek to show love for their enemies and refrain from judging others. Putting it bluntly, people who want to see God’s will be done enter into the hard stuff of life, helping God in God’s work of redemption. It’s no wonder that many would rather pray only for what they want or stop praying altogether. I say it again, praying for the Lord’s will is not easy.

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Let me try to put it into story form.  Lorie and I have been working on a manuscript for the last couple of years on her long journey with cancer. We expect to send it to the publisher in the next week and to see the book in print by the fall. Here is an excerpt that I think touches on this act of aligning ourselves with God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven:

“Lorie is occasionally asked to preach in a church or speak to a group about her faith and approach to suffering. She has often needed to back out due to yet another cancer diagnosis that compromises her immunities and makes her housebound again. When she has been able, however, she often refers to the story of the man born blind–a story found in the 9th chapter of John’s gospel.

She finds that in nearly every audience there is a group of people who think illness or suffering is a sign that God is displeased and that God’s judgment is somehow the source of the illness. There is also a group of persons who think it is presumptuous or selfish to ask God for miracles. Maybe you do not know anyone who holds to either point of view, but we can assure you such people are legion and they make life difficult for the suffering person. One group tells the sufferer they need to confess their sins if they ever want to be made whole again. The other berates the suffering person for being selfish and asking big things of God. Making use of the John 9 text, Lorie points to the words of Jesus as a means to move beyond these tired and silly perspectives and invites her audiences to see matters differently.

These diverse religious perspectives were characteristic of how people thought in Jesus’ day too. The followers of Jesus thought sin—either by the blind man or his parents—was the reason he had been struck blind. After Jesus healed him, the Pharisees took Jesus to task for violating what was proper and performing a miracle on a Sabbath day. Because he did so, they viewed Jesus as the sinner in the story and certainly not a servant of God.

The verse that guides Lorie’s own responses to suffering are these words of Jesus:

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned . . .but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” (John 9:3 NIV)

Lorie inserts her own diagnosis into these words and invites the suffering person and their families to do so as well.

“My leiomyosarcoma did not happen because I or my parents sinned . . . this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in my life.”

Perhaps this sounds ridiculous. To some ears it might even sound as if the person who speaks it credits God for inflicting them with something. Consider it a statement of faith and hope, however, a belief there is some purpose and benefit rather than none at all. Understood that way, it is far less ridiculous and perhaps more sane than giving up, ranting at the heavens, or believing that nothing more can be done.

From our own circumstances we know this to be true. Lorie is now believed to be the longest lived person with the disease. Her experiences and course of treatment now benefit others who share her diagnosis. New patients are able to progress to more advanced medicines and surgical procedures and skip the more traumatic ones because Lorie bears the stripes in her body that truly are a means of healing for others. They are able to prolong their lives and perhaps outlive Lorie because she chose the orientation of letting the work of God be displayed in her life.

-excerpted from Fighting Disease, Not Death,

©2011 Lorie and Mark L. Vincent

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And here are words from Joni Eareckson Tada, now more than 40 years as a quadriplegic, whose latest book A place of healing: wrestling with the mysteries of suffering (David C. Cook, 2010) details her more recent battle with chronic pain and the diagnosis of breast cancer.  She tells of Shantamma, an 18 year old woman in India, born without use of her legs who became a Christian after a pastor gave her a decrepit copy of the book Joni. In the amazing way God works, it so happened that the ministry of Joni and Friends arranged for a wheelchair for Shantamma without knowing the back story. In her joy, she told one of the team members, “I am ready to go wherever God leads me in this wheelchair . . .just like Joni.”

Joni writes:

“…this is one of a million reasons why I am grateful God didn’t heal me of my paralysis. What if God had answered my prayers as a 17-year-old, released me from my paralysis, and returned me to a normal life of a woman on her feet?. . . .There would have been no Joni book for the pastor to give this young woman with so little hope and so few prospects, and there would have been no Joni and Friends or Wheels for the World to do a wheelchair distribution for impoverished people in Ongole, India.

“…. I can’t know what would have happened . . .if there had been no quadriplegic girl in America named Joni to inspire her and lead her to faith in the one true God . . . .I only know that because I wasn’t healed, because God had plans for my life that were wider and higher and deeper and more profound than I could have ever imagined, a teenage girl named Shantamma from the slums of urban India will be with me in heaven. In glorious new bodies that will never tire and never fade, we’ll explore the high mountains of that place, and the wide, green meadows, and we will laugh out loud for joy over the goodness and grace of our heavenly Father.

“What will those decades of disability have meant to me then? What will those few years of chronic pain, tears, and frustration add up to then? That’s enough right there to cause me to say, “Thank you, God, for this wheelchair.” (pp. 191ff).

What more can be said after stories like these? We can only pray as Jesus taught us. Often. Repeatedly. Conforming our will to the will of the Father. On earth as it is in heaven.

-mark l vincent

The thanks I give

I am writing this while Lorie and I wait to hear just how much her cancer has grown and whether it means entering into treatment immediately or a few weeks from now. We are embarking on what will be a thirteenth round in this interminable, yet holy battle. Working is what pays our medical bills, but so often work takes me out of town, making it particularly hard to wait. A scrap of paper in an old file caught my eye today. I don’t know when or where I wrote this prayer, but it was medicine for my spirit . . . .

The thanks I give

This joy I render

Comes from a heart blistered and tender

From the friction of sliding through shadows I could avoid.

Yet, You peer into this darkness

And call my name.

Your voice shines light in my shroud and brings me to life

Life!

How grand it is to breathe in Your presence!

How glorious to possess a beating, blistered heart!

How glorious to know you hold it in Your healing hands!

-mark l vincent

A fine, close shave . . . .

The opening of the novel Ulysses by the Irish literary giant James Joyce is an artful description of a man shaving. The hot water. The soap and brush. The careful scrape of a sharpened razor on skin. Some men hate to do it. For others it is a luxury, almost prayerful in how it is done. Consider me in the latter camp.

It is good to have habits like these, at least a few. They are centering activities that keep one focused. It might be the weekly round of golf, tooling in one’s workshop or garden, or in one’s sewing closet. It might be a few hours of fishing, a five mile run, twenty miles on a bike, concocting something new in the skillet, or the morning cup of coffee on the front porch. They clear the head and often provide the needed solace to help one consider solutions they could not see before.

If one has too many, however, they become distractions that prevent us from doing what needs to be done. These artful, nearly prayerful routines become barriers against tackling the big uglys that are staring at us. As an example, an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon showed young Calvin trying to get a better grade on an awful report he had written by decorating his cover page more ornately. His doodling had gone from a means to focus to becoming a distraction all its own.

Cell phones, facebook, Linked In, computer screen savers, Ipods, e-books, and the like all provide electronic means to work more productively and creatively, or simply to distract us further from what matters. The solution I’m trying out is to take an inventory of  what helps me focus and what distracts me. This includes listing those things I once enjoyed but now simply get in the way of real life. I intend to reduce and eliminate the distractions.

Consider it my Lenten discipline.

I already know that shaving with mug, soap and brush remains on the list.

-mark l vincent