Praying the will of God

Jesus instructs us to pray that God's "will be done on earth as it is in heaven." And in dark Gethsamane he modeled that sort of prayer: "Not my will, but yours..."

I want to pray for God's will, but it's difficult. I often am unclear on what his will is. Do I pray for healing or comfort while dying? When a brother wonders off in disobedience, do I ask that God would spare them harm, or do whatever it takes? Other clear examples escape me. But I found the following prayer by Thomas Merton to be helpful:

My LORD God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. (found in "Thoughts in Solitude")

What to pray for

I don't always know what to pray. Sometimes I pray the same prayers so often that I am hardly think aout them as I pray. I know that this is not what God desires from my prayer life, but sometimes it's difficult to know what to pray for. When I begin to get in a rut like that, I like to do what Daniel did. He let Scripture lead his parayer"

Daniel 9:1 In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes... I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. 3 So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.

Daniel had been exiled to Baylon along with all the other leaders in Jerusalem as a punishment against God's people. Jerusalem itself, lay in shambles. Daniel was reading Jeremiah. He found a prophecy that said this banishment from Jerusalem would only last 70 years. It was almost 70 years when he read it. What follows is one of Scripture's most beautiful prayers.



"O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands, 5 we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
DA 9:7 "Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame--the men of Judah and people of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. 8 O LORD, we and our kings, our princes and our fathers are covered with shame because we have sinned against you. 9 The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; 10 we have not obeyed the LORD our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets. 11 All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you.
"Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against you. 12 You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us great disaster. Under the whole heaven nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem. 13 Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth. 14 The LORD did not hesitate to bring the disaster upon us, for the LORD our God is righteous in everything he does; yet we have not obeyed him.
DA 9:15 "Now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong. 16 O Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and the iniquities of our fathers have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us.
DA 9:17 "Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, O Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. 18 Give ear, O God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. 19 O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name."

Try to start some prayers by reading God's word. See where the conversation leads.

God to the rescue

2 Samuel 22:2-3
The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield and the horn of my salvation.
He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior-
from violent men you save me.


There are nine terms here (two different terms for rock) which all speak of God's rescuing abilities. Some more modern terms might be guard dog, Mama bear, defense attorney, 401k, anti-lock breaks and power steering, miracle drug, big brother, helmet, safety belt, jaws of life, military, Constitution and Bill of Rights, union rep, firefighter, deadbolt, Onstar, firewall... I'm sure you can think of others.

In doing such brainstorming, we might reveal that we have placed our trust in some of these things rather than God. But the point of the Psalm is the GOD is (fill in your trustworthy protection metaphor).

Let's pray that we would learn to trust him above all, and that he would give us opportunity to display that trust.

my girl turned 3 this week 

my boy 

Daddy can feed me! 

Daddy can dress me too! 

Hannah in Algonac 

Show the blind man

In Acts 9, Saul sees the light... and then he sees nothing for days. His head must have been spinning. He thought he was defending the true faith, now he finds out he had actually been persecuting it. What irony, a blinding vision allowed him to see. And the man most hellbent on stopping the church becomes the one man (other than Jesus) most responsible for its worldwide success.

Males me wonder if there could be a modern-day equivalent out there. Think of the person most hellbent to stop the church in our day... The president of the ACLU? Marilyn Manson? Osama Bin Laden? Think of the impact such a person could have if Jesus met them and turned their life around!

My favorite part of this section though, is the Lord's message to Ananias: "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." I will show the blind man what life with me will be like. Yet, instead of complaining of the new assignment of suffering, he would often boast about it. (Phil 3:7-14) Man, I long to see some Big-Time repentance like that in my day!

The Order of the Sheep

After the accounts of Stephen (a man of great power who laid down his life) and Simon (a man of power whose lust for more power brought condemnation upon himself) comes the account of the Ethiopian Eunuch (8:26-40).

A little digging shows that this "baptism passage" says a whole lot about power. The Ethiopian was a servant to the Queen. She ruled for her son, the King, because Ethiopian kings thought themselves to be the sons of the Sun (god). That, they believed, made them much too divine for the business of governing. So the Eunuch was familiar with a son of a god who was so powerful (divine) that he was useless.

Add to that, he himself was a high-ranking official, but being a eunuch may have felt too emascualted to feel powerful. I won't over-analyze here, but the tension between being a powerful man and an emasculated man is too much to ignore.

He is reading Isaiah, perhaps because it contains the good news for eunuchs (Isaiah 56:4, 5... is there a word play in there?). He was reading this from Isaiah 53:

"He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before the shearers, so he opened not his mouth; 33 in his humiliation, justice was denied him; and who can express the wickedness of the people of his generation? For his life is taken from the earth."


Philip explains to him that this "sheep to the slaughter" was the Messiah, Son of the True God. What a contrast from the son of a god he had already known. Apparently, such a powerful man acting in such a selfless way was very attractive to the Ethopian. He decides to surrender his life to the Lamb in the waters of baptism, which is itself a pouring out of power.

Why does a book about the church's beginnings have so much about the pursuit of power in it? I have an opinion. When surrounded by sheep, the temptation to "power up" and take charge (with all the emotional highs and the status that go with that) is very real and very dangerous. To be right, we, the sheep, must follow the First Sheep, Jesus. He did not pursue his own power, but poured out his power for the good of others. That's what Stepehen was doing. That's what Simon did not get. That is what won the heart of an emasculated Ethiopian powerhouse.

power and servanthood

Acts 8:5-24


What a huge contrast between Stephen and Simon. One with true power did not seek more power even when his life was on the line. The other saught power whatever the cost.


Peter, was none too thrilled with Simon's heart. The self-seeking nature of his request was diametrically opposed to the heart of Christianity.


I liked this photo because it shows someone like Stephen who had power butthe heart of the student.


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Last week, I tried to write something about my brother, Jason. He died three years ago. I didn't/couldn't finish it. Maybe soemday.