Thursday, March 18, 2010

Pray submitting to God's Will

So after my question about "may your will be done" the next chapter speaks to this idea of submitting to God's Will.

"To pray effectually you must pray in submission to the will of God... Do no confuse submission in prayer with a general confidence that God will do what is right. It is proper to have this confidence that God will do right in all things. But this is a different thing from submission. What i mean by submission in prayer is acquiescence in the revealed will of God. To submit to any command of God is to obey it. Submission to some supposed or possible, but secret, decree of God is not submission...."

Paraphrased: The fervency and importunity of our prayers make a difference. We always end our prayers by submitting to God's will while sometimes we do not pray earnestly for what we desire, but simply turn it all over for God to take care of while we try to be satisfied with the results.

Having confidence in God's willingness to do what is right is good.
Submitting (and obeying) God through what actually happens is also good.
I guess we have to pray with confidence but understand that sometimes we don't understand how God's will reconciles with what we don't desire.

Best example is praying for healing. Please God heal this person. It would be good, you have the power, they love you and will do good for you. That is not against God's will. But it may not be in God's will. We don't know the specifics of the situation.

Tough.

No comments: