If It Be Your Will

Those of us who believe in a God who is active in the world may be tempted to substitute our own will to that of God.  We assume that because we want something, God must want the same thing.  We can also believe that God will intervene and set the world right according to how we believe the world should be. 

How often are we tempted to demand that God do something.  We want God to bring an end to COVID – cast out the demon COVID and free us from being enslaved by it.  Why won’t God do this?  After all, Jesus cast out many demons in his ministry.  Why can’t he cast out the demon COVID?  Jesus was tempted by Satan to cast himself down from the heights and see if God the Father would send angels to save him – but he replied to the tempter, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” 

There is a marvelous phrase I heard which describes this desire to have God do our bidding.  It is ‘God the butler’.  We want to keep God downstairs out of the way until we call on God to do our bidding – to serve us.  God does not work that way as Jesus shows us. 

The Society of Saint John the Evangelist sends out a word every day with a  short reflection on that word.  It is entitled Show Me a Word.  A few days ago, the word for the day was ‘will’:

We cannot control what Jesus will or will not do, and we will never fully know what to expect from him. But we can be assured that whatever he does or does not do will be consonant with the Kingdom of God. He acts in accordance with the divine rule, whose presence he embodies and whose coming he announces. Br. David Vryhof,

As much as we would wish and hope that we could control the world and have it run as we would like it to be run, God does not work that way and given what people are like it is probably a good thing. Does that mean that prayer is pointless?  After all, if God is going to do what God wants, what is the point?  I have asked myself that many times in my life and I always come back to the realization that I must pray and always know that I am leaving it in God’s hands and so I usually end my prayers with the acclamation, ‘Fulfil my requests as may be best for us’. 

 May God be with you and bless you on your journey.