Lesson 34: Prayer must be Definite, part 3
It may be asked, is it not best to make our wishes known to God, and then to leave it to Him to decide what is best, without seeking to assert our will? By no means. This is the very essence of the prayer of faith, to which Jesus sought to train His disciples, that it does not only make known its desire and then leave the decision to God. That would be the prayer of submission, for cases in which we cannot know God’s will. But the prayer of faith, finding God’s will in some promise of the Word, pleads for that until it comes. In Matthew (chapter 28) we read that Jesus said to the blind man, “Do you believe that I can do this?” Here, in Mark, He says: “What do you will that I should do?” In both cases He said that faith had saved them. And so He said to the Syrophoenician woman, too: “Great is your faith: be it unto you even as you will.” Faith is nothing but the purpose of the will resting on God’s word, and saying: I must have it. To believe truly is to will firmly.
But is not such a will at variance with our dependence on God and our submission to Him? By no means; it is much rather the true submission that honors God. It is only when the child has yielded his own will in entire surrender to the Father that he receives from the Father liberty and power to will what he would have. But when once the believer has accepted the will of God, as revealed through the Word and Spirit, as his will, too, then it is the will of God that His child should use this renewed will in His service.
The will is the highest power in the soul; grace wants above everything to sanctify and restore this will, one of the chief traits of God’s image, to full and free exercise. As a son who only lives for his Father’s interests, who seeks not his own but his Father’s will is trusted by the father with his business, so God speaks to His child in all truth, “What do you will?” It is often spiritual sloth that, under the appearance of humility, professes to have no will, because it fears the trouble of searching out the will of God or, when found, the struggle of claiming it in faith. True humility is ever in company with strong faith which only seeks to know what is according to the will of God, and then boldly claims the fulfilment of the promise: “You shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.”
Prayer: Blessed Savior, I do beseech You to reveal to me the wonderful condescension You show us, thus asking us to say what we will that You should do, and promising to do whatever we will. Son of God, I cannot understand it; I can only believe that You have redeemed us wholly for Yourself, and seek to make the will, as our noblest part, Your most efficient servant. Lord, I do most unreservedly yield my will to You, as the power through which Your Spirit is to rule my whole being. Let Him take possession of it, lead it into the truth of Your promises, and make it so strong in prayer that I may ever hear Your voice saying: “Great is your faith: be it unto you even as you ask.”