PRAYER

I saw a cartoon recently in one of my "church" magazines in which the pastor was standing in the pulpit. He has his head bowed as he says, "Let us Pray. (a pause) Please allow six to eight weeks for delivery."

So true, isn't it? When we pray, you and I, we so often pray for something that needs an immediate response. We have a need, not just a want, a real need that needs to be addressed right here and right now. And we can't wait six to eight weeks for God to do something -- to deliver on Jesus's promise to be with us always, not in six to eight weeks.

But prayer is a two-way street. In that same magazine I found a quote (the source of which I have lost) that really hits the nail on the head, and is a gentle reminder about prayer. "Nothing lies beyond the reach of prayer except what lies outside the will of God."

Accepting the truth of that statement often takes six to eight weeks for delivery. If you're like me, you want your will to be God's will and not the other way around. Yes, I pray every day, many times every day, "your will be done on earth as in heaven." And I am sincere. I am my most sincere when God's will is being done for someone else. I am least sincere when my prayer concerns my needs/wants/desires. It is then that I so desperately want God's will to conform to my will. Perhaps the saving grace at those times is that, again, if you are like me, we are at least honest enough to admit to God while in prayer that we do want him to make our will his will. We won't lie about that.

But not lying is not the same as liking the result. We may be honest in making it clear in prayer that we do want God to answer our prayers the way we want them answered. And we may be quite aware that God will answer our prayers in God’s own way and in God’s own time – be it six to eight seconds, six to eight weeks or maybe never. And sometimes an honest answer is "no."

The struggle that we all have when we pray – and it is the struggle with life itself – is, as Isaiah reminds us, that God's ways are not always our ways and God's thoughts not always our thoughts. To put it bluntly: we are not God, much as we would like to play God, especially at those times when life is out of our control. That's when the struggle over whose will will be done gets rough.

And it is indeed a real struggle. The struggle is to understand why, why God's will is different than our will. After all, we know what we would do if we were to be able to play God. Why can't God see it as clearly as we see it – whatever that it is?

If it is any consolation, and it probably isn’t when we are struggling, it is that Jesus had the same struggle in the Garden just before his death. He couldn't understand why his Father would allow his Son to suffer such a cruel death. What loving father would allow this to happen, especially if it could be prevented? Jesus's reluctant, "nevertheless, your will be done," doesn't make our own acceptance of God's will any easier. Sometimes we struggle for six to eight weeks. Sometimes longer.