A Prayer for When God Would not Do What I Need – Your Every day Prayer

A Prayer for When God Doesn’t Do What I Need
By Rev. Kyle Norman

“Not my will, however yours be completed” (Luke 22:42).

A church I used to be as soon as concerned with spent years discerning whether or not to interact in a multi-million greenback constructing mission. The mission would contain the entire destruction of the present constructing, the dislocation of the congregation, and an advanced rebuild of a formidable worship construction. The congregation had taken years to set this imaginative and prescient, develop the plan, and put together for his or her soon-to-be exodus. However greater than something, the congregation prayed. They prayed that they could know the need of God for them and that they obtain the religious capability to comply with that can. They prayed for perception, braveness, and discernment. 

Then, on the cusp of this grand plan starting, all the pieces started falling aside. Regardless of the preliminary conviction that this new constructing mission was the best way ahead, some started to query whether or not this was the best way to go. Others started to lift questions on funding and whether or not the plan was fiscally accountable. After which the massive one hit: the architectural agency they have been working with acquired into authorized hassle. Finally, the congregation needed to stroll away from their plan. They put the mission on maintain and disbanded the mission constructing committee. There was palatable disappointment within the congregation when this happened.

Have you ever ever skilled one thing that you just felt was divinely impressed not to happen? Have you ever ever prayed for God to do one thing, solely to see the other happen? It may be laborious and irritating when this occurs. When God doesn’t do what we wish our pure inclination is to imagine that some kind of judgment is at play. Are we being punished? Did we anger God? Did we not pray sufficient? 

Beneath these ideas and emotions is the unlucky perception that by some means, God’s will is determined by us. It’s as if we assume that God’s will is equal to the desires and desires of our personal lives, and we wants merely wrap our self-defined plans in prayer to see them take flight. However this isn’t how God works. Even Jesus prayed, “Not my will, however yours be completed” (Luke 22:42).

Whereas it may be irritating when God doesn’t do what we wish, this truly testifies that the Holy Spirit is current and dealing. Relatively than pointing to a scarcity of prayer, we see the efficient working of our prayers. In any case, the congregation above earnestly prayed that their constructing efforts conform to God’s will and that God be accountable for their future plans. The truth that it turned out opposite to their authentic planning is immaterial. God answered their prayer! God did take cost; God did lead. 

If we actually pray, “thy might be completed, on earth as it’s in heaven,” we shouldn’t be stunned when this prayer is realized! Praying the prayer calls for that we lay ourselves earlier than the Lord in uncooked humility. In any case, we wish the Spirit to maneuver. We wish God to take management. And so when these occasions stumble upon us, we’re to satisfy them with rejoicing. Even when God doesn’t do what we wish it’s nonetheless God who’s at work in our lives. 

Thus, we should always by no means assume the abdication of God’s will just because issues end up in another way than we’d count on or think about. God’s methods are usually not our methods, and God’s ideas are past our personal (Isaiah 55:8). Moreover, God works as a lot by way of inflicting issues not to occur as a lot as permitting them to occur. We by no means drive God’s will, nor will we management it. If we’re to be individuals who resolutely pray to comply with God’s will, we should be ready to stroll in methods we’d not have chosen.

That is what Jesus was educating Nicodemus when he says, “The wind blows the place it chooses, you hear it sound, however you have no idea the place it comes from or the place it goes. So, it’s with everybody born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). Like gusts of wind shifting throughout the prairies, we by no means handle God’s will in our lives. We don’t wield it or manifest it. As an alternative, we reply to it. Ultimately, God’s will occurs to us. The query will not be whether or not God’s will is blowing within the path we’d select, however will we comply with in the best way the Spirit leads?

Allow us to pray:

Lord, generally I get in my very own approach. As a lot as I pray in your will to be completed in my life, I do know that I usually relaxation upon my very own energy and power. I pray to comply with your will, however then I arrange my very own plans and instructions, and I comply with the desires and whims of my coronary heart and never yours. However I do pray in your will actually. I do need your will to be revealed in me and thru me.

I’m sorry, Lord, for the occasions when I’ve responded to your will with frustration or annoyance. I’m sorry for assuming that your will should conform to my plans. I’m sorry for the occasions when I’ve didn’t rejoice in your will. 

Father, open my eyes to see the trail that you just ask me to stroll. Open my ears to listen to your voice above that of my very own needs or needs. Open my coronary heart to just accept your will for my life. And, Father, after I enter these occasions the place you don’t do what I what, could you open my mouth in order that I could rejoice that your will is completed, and never my very own.

Photograph credit score: iStock/Getty Photographs Plus/yokeetod