Day 77 - August 31 - My Atrophied Faith - Part 2

This is Part 2 in an unnumbered series of thoughts about what it means to exercise faith in this day and age. If you missed Part 1, or need to refresh yourself on it, click here to read it.

Question #1 - Does "having great faith" mean "Not my will, but Thine"?

Question #2 - Does "having great faith" mean "I never ask God for anything I want"?

Question #3 - Does "having great faith" mean "never asking to have a bad situation end"?

I contend that the answer to every one of those questions is a resounding "No".

Let's start off with an anecdote. One of the tendencies many people have here in the U.S. of Consumerism is Packratting. For those of you who didn't have the benefit of growing up in the desert, packrats are these cute little bushy-tailed critters who hoard food and other objects, cramming their nests full of the stuff they collect. Many folks are the same, collecting things until they have multiple storage units full of stuff they haven't seen in years. If you took a look in my garage, you'd see that I suffer from a mild form of this disease, but there are some who have made keeping things into an art form. They've got rooms and garages and storage units and shipping containers full of stuff they neither use nor need, and I have to ask the question - why do you have it if you don't use it?

Now let's talk a bit about the topic of this post - our unused faith. It seems that question applies to my faith, as well. If I don't use it, why have it in the first place? Of course, you knew I was going to drag this conversation back to faith one way or another; but am I really suggesting that we aren't using our faith the way it is intended?

Well, yes, I am. Allow me to explain - but in order to do so, I first need to talk about praying "not my will, but Thine".

I'm going to drop a bombshell on you with this one, but I really believe I'm supposed to do so. You ready?

I don't find any support in scripture for the idea that we're supposed to pray "not my will but Thine" when we ask for what we want.

There are numerous references in the New Testament to living your life according to God's will - but I can find only one reference to someone actually praying those words in the New Testament, and that person is Jesus - God Himself - praying in the garden of Gethsemane. Now, the question isn't really why God the Son, anguishing over His future (one He KNOWS must happen), prays for it to be changed. I'm pretty sure all of us humans get the idea that his immediate future wasn't all that attractive. No, the question I want answered is what He meant when He prayed "Not my will, but Thine be done". I respectfully submit that Christ, having the foreknowledge of God, and (already) knowing the answer to His anguished prayer, and also (already) knowing that the path laid before Him was the one and only way God the Father had ordained for God the Son to walk, spoke that phrase to signal utter submission to His Father's will. Now, one could argue that this is an example for all of us, and I suppose that verbalizing your inner spirit like that isn't a bad thing per se. I just don't think this passage was written to be used as a model of Christian prayer.

I suspect that turning the phrase into a mantra does something entirely different than what Christ intended. Christ, in extreme distress, uttered that phrase as a sign of submission. When we say it, however, aren't we really uttering it as justification for not believing God will do what we ask? I mean, it sure sounds holy and Christlike, but what am I saying when I say it? Think about it - if I pray that my son gets up and walks, and then stick "not my will but Yours, Lord" on the end as I finish, aren't I really leaving myself a loophole so that if it doesn't happen I can say "Well, the Lord didn't will it"? Actually, as I read back over that last sentence, even writing that down demonstrates that my faith isn't where I want it yet - faith that moves mountains doesn't concern itself with "if it doesn't happen". So if I pray "not my will but Thine", Isn't it possible that what I'm really saying is "OK, I don't believe You're actually gonna give me what I want, so You go ahead and do whatever You think You need to do"? At which point I am not really praying, but expressing my unbelief instead. In that case, my muttering of the phrase allows me to give up anytime I want and say "Well, I guess the Lord doesn't will it", whereas NOT praying it means I have to keep praying until I am answered, or give up and call it what it is - throwing away my confidence. Muttering that rote phrase then becomes a cop-out, because it negates the whole meaning and purpose of my prayer, which is to lift my need to the throne. Oh, yeah - and (ironically) there's no support for it in scripture anyway!

You might now be asking "What do you mean, there's no support for it"? Well, let's look at the scriptures and see how Jesus tells us to pray for things -

(Disclaimer - I am only quoting the pertinent verses. DO NOT take my word for this - check the context!)

Matthew 7:7-11 (see Luke 11:9-13 as well) - "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"

Matthew 21:22 - "And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith."

Mark 11:24 -"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

John 14:10-14 - "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it."

OK, so we get the idea of how Jesus says to pray for things - ASK! And it seems to me that the sum of these teachings and examples tells us to ask, believing, and it will be done, because God delights in doing good things for His children.

Let's set aside (for now) the question of "why doesn't everybody get everything they want, then?" and keep the train of thought going - what about Christ's followers? How did they pray? Let's look at one of them, a fellow named Paul. You may have heard of him... 8-)

2 Corinthians 12:8-10 - "Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

What I'm seeing here is "A persistent trial was given to me, so I prayed to have it removed. And God told me "No, for My grace is sufficient for you". So now, since God told me "no", I am content where I am because when I'm weak, I'm strong because He's strong". (That's the Eric Williamson paraphrase, BTW!) What that means is that Paul asked right up until God said "no" - then he stopped. He didn't try to defy God's will by trying to "force" God to do something - once God said "no" Paul accepted that and moved on. But what I think is significant is that Paul didn't give up asking - he asked until he got a clear "yes or no" answer, then he stopped.

I respectfully suggest that this fits the model of prayer that Jesus laid out for his followers much more closely than "Thy will be done" does. Praying "Thy will be done" sounds holy, which is why we like it so much - but it's not in accordance with the scriptures.

Now, before anyone gets all irate that I would suggest such a thing, go check the Bible your ownself. I'm not making this stuff up - it's right there in black and white (or red and white, as the case may be). I contend that our penchant (and I really do mean "our" - I'm trying to unlearn this as we speak) for praying "Thy will be done" allows us to avoid having to flex our faith. As anyone who goes to the gym knows, there's a reason it's called "working out" - NOT working out is a whole lot easier than working out - but it doesn't accomplish much of anything, either.

I believe that the western church, by and large, has gotten lazy in their faith. If you find yourself hot under the collar from that statement, please realize that I include myself in that statement - I can't throw any stones, here. But if that's true (and I believe it is), what does it mean?

Well, I think it means it's time for me (and you, by extension) to actually open the Bible, find out what's true, unlearn and toss out the false stuff we've learned over the years, and start living/praying/trusting the way God intended us to.

Hmmm, maybe living a life of faith in Christ isn't the cakewalk so much of the church advertises - "Just come to Jesus and all your problems will be solved!", right? Trust me, grasping your faith and trying to learn to use it is not easy at all. In fact, it's a lot closer to torture than anything else. And I can't even honestly say it will be worth it - I haven't been able to unlearn enough to actually apply it yet. So right now you're reading the words of someone who hasn't effectively put this into practice. But because I sense the urgency of learning the truth about my faith, I pass it along to you in the hope that someone else will join me on this journey as well.

Chew on this stuff for a while - don't fire from the hip in your responses, if any. Pray. Research. Find the truth, and we'll talk. And I will throw you another tough challenge as well - give your reasoning the dignity of your identity. If your response doesn't generate enough belief inside yourself to post your own screen name, is it worth posting? I don't mean to offend, but everybody here knows my real name is Eric Williamson, and I am laying my faith and my beliefs out in the open and allowing the whole world to examine them and pick them apart. If you don't believe your own positions enough to publicly declare them, are they worth sharing? Many here have spoken before about becoming bolder in our faith - where better to practice than in the family? Who knows - it might just help us sharpen our own faith, and maybe even learn how to handle opposition better!

I don't really know where Part 3 is going to take us - it's going to have something to do with using our faith the way we're supposed to, but I don't really know the direction that will take. I've got some ideas, but no clear direction yet. Stay tuned. One of these days I want to understand what it means to live a life of practical faith - primarily because I'm not very good at it yet...

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