“Thy Will be Done” – A “Cop-out” or an Affirmation of Faith?

Today, a Facebook friend asked for prayer for his sister-in-law who was terribly sick with a very serious fungal infection and his brother-in-law who needed strength to help her. My heart went out to both of them. I can certainly sympathize. In the past few years my wife has been in intensive care with severe pneumonia several times. Three times I have been counselled to “take her off code,” i.e., sign a “do not resuscitate” order because there would be no point in attempting it. Three times I have been told that it was doubtful she could ever come off the ventilator. Many evenings I walked away from the hospital and looked back at it with the serious dread that she might not be alive to greet me in the morning. I prayed. I prayed earnestly, with tears, often. I pleaded. I begged, over and over, in the chapel, in the car, before going to bed, in bed, in her room way past midnight by her bedside between what seemed like hours of watching the waves and numbers on her bedside monitor. What more could I do? What less could I allow myself to do?

In all this there was a truth that sustained me: “My God is Sovereign.” Now, some details of this make that truth especially precious. The first is that He is my God. In all times of personal difficulties, it is essential to remember that while He is “over all things,” He is not a God “out there.” The great “covenantal” reality is that “I am His and He is mine” in the closest of ways. He is my friend, my husband, my shepherd, as near and dear to him as my own body is to me. Whatever appearances may be to the contrary, He has demonstrated in the most indubitable way that He is “for me.” We say so often, and perhaps with too little appreciation, “If God be for us, what can be against us,” but do we really believe that God is, in fact, for us. We so often quote these scriptures in affirmation of a general truth for “God’s people,” or “God’s children” generally, but fail to quote them in the first-person singular, or for our spouse or little family. Paul said, “Christ loved me and gave Himself for me.”  So, say it, because it is true of you as an individual believer, “God shows his love for me in that while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me.  Since, therefore, I have now been justified by his blood, much more shall I be saved by him from the wrath of God.  For if while I was an enemies I was reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that I am reconciled, shall I be saved by his life” ( Romans 5:8–10). And, “I know that God works all things for my good, one who loves Him and is called according to His purpose, which purpose is to glorify Himself by conforming me to the likeness of the Son who is His eternal delight.

Secondly, He is my Sovereign. it means that His “will” will be done. Now some people foolishly say that you should not say, “If it be Thy will,” because, they say, “that is a ‘cop-out.’”  It means, they say, that you are “making an excuse” for your prayer not being granted, and doing so, they say, is a sign of your own unbelief. I say it is just the opposite. If I pray “if God wills,” here is what I know – it means that I know that if the thing I am asking really is God’s will, then NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! can prevent it. It is ridiculous to think that the Lord is limited by anything outside of Himself. “Omnipotence” means that when it comes to creating multiplied billions of galaxies, or turning the heart of a king, He does not fret, or sweat, or strain against the resistance, or experience anything of what us finite created things experience as “difficulties.”

Third, it would be a great error to jump thinking about God’s sovereign omnipotence and forget what we mean when we call Him our Sovereign God. That is, we must not forget His other attributes. The trouble with so many is that they think that God is doing all things for His glory, and that maybe He will say no to my prayers because His glory might require it (because His glory trumps my good. They forget the infinite wisdom of God to whom no such conflict of interests exists. He can without any difficulty work it all out so that it all happen to His absolute highest glory and my absolute best good. People who are afraid to say “if it be Thy will” are also showing a lack of trust in the divine goodness, in particular His kindness. If the scriptures show me anything about Jesus, and in Jesus I have a perfect view of the Father, it is His kindness, his tender compassion, the Greek is splagchnizomai and it gets its name because you feel it right down in your gut.. The most tender unregenerate father, whose bowels yearn over his suffering child is a mere analogy for the pity of the Father in heaven. He who “pitied” heathen Nineveh, He who wept over the righteous divine judgment coming upon apostate murderous obdurate Jerusalem, shall he not pity the blood-bought child who buries his tear-soaked face in His bosom. As an old Reformed hymn puts it, “Thou hast the true, the perfect gentleness. No harshness hast thou, and no bitterness.” I could, in those terrible times, go to the Lord in prayer with utter confidence in this: I know not what God in infinite loving wisdom has planned, but I can know He will be kind. He will be kind to me, He will be kind to Sandy. Indeed, I can count on Him to do whatever is the most kind thing. That is what it means to say to Him, “My Father!”

“My Father.” Sometimes God will not give us what we ask. It is simply not always true that our petitions are His will. People do not always return, or repent, or recover from their illness. Faithful saints die, the Lord may take from us our beloved pastors, the young missionary, the mother of young children, and it is not necessarily right to attribute this so-called “unanswered prayer,” to sin or unbelief. The most urgent request, the most earnest prayer ever made in the history of the universe, was made by the perfectly righteous, most believing of men, sweating blood and “with strong cryings and tears,” but the intensely desired thing was not granted, except for the final part: “thy will be done.” And, the greatest good in the history of the universe was the outcome.

One more thing I have learned along the way, is that in the worst of times, he really was not only for me, but with me. He not only makes promises, but gives His Holy Spirit to strengthen weary, feeble hands to lay hold of those promises. Thus, all these prayers become not desperate cries into a dark and empty sky, but an occasion for emptying my soul to One who loves me. How often He has taught me the truth of, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart,” and “Humble yourselves, …under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.…And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”  In all, whether I always felt it or not, He is nearer than anything else.

So, keep coming. The one to whom you come is not an unjust judge, who begrudgingly gives in because you wear him out, but this God, the believer’s faithful, powerful, compassionate, purposeful Christ-giving Father. Make your requests know unto Him, “His grace and pow’r are such, none can e’er ask too much.” Finally, be not afraid to say, “Thy will be done,” for there is absolutely no better outcome of your prayers than that, and nothing in all the world can prevent it.

O make but trial of his love;
Experience will decide
How blest they are, and only they,
Who in his truth confide.

Fear him, ye saints; and you will then
Have nothing else to fear:
Make you his service your delight,
He'll make your wants his care.