Submissive Prayer

Lately I've been struggling with the idea of how to pray over a situation that I feel strongly about, yet still submit to the sovereignty of God. You know how it is when you find yourself praying about something and you know the way you want it to turn out. Yet at the same time, you struggle how to pray for that knowing that God may have something else for you in mind.

For me right now there is nothing I want more than to just be healthy again. I've been struggling a lot this weekend because I really don't want this cyst. I still have nightmares from my last surgery and the complications and while looking back I can see God's hand in it, I don't want to go through that again. At the same time though I'm very much aware that in the past God choose not to heal me from this and so while I'm still praying for healing, I don't want to be completely self-centred in my prayers or my outlook on my life.

So this weekend I found myself in that place of not knowing what to say, but knowing that saying nothing was not the answer either. Thankfully I found out though that I'm not the only one to have this dilemma. Jesus, during one of His most difficult hours in the Garden of Gethsemane, faced the exact same struggle:

[Jesus] went on a little farther and fell face down on the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting Him might pass Him by. "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine." (Mark 14:35-36 NLT)

Once again Jesus showed the perfect answer to one of my dilemmas. Jesus prayed for what He wanted in the flesh, yet at the same time surrendered Himself to God's perfect will. Through one quick prayer, Jesus told God exactly how He felt about what He was facing, asked for what He wanted, yet was still submissive in the fact that deep down He wanted God's way, not His own.

And so while on Saturday I was caught up in a few moments of wrestling with God, today I'm approaching Him with a completely different prayer:

"Father God, I know that with you all things are possible. Please take this away from me and restore my health. Yet I want Your plan for me, not mine."