God's Will Be Done

The other night I was reading a book I randomly chose from a bookcase at the entrance of an adoration chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. I began reading it and after turning just a few pages I found tucked in between the pages a white, square sheet of paper with a prayer on it. A phrase over the prayer read: “This novena has never failed.” I crumpled it up without even reading the prayer. I sifted through the book and found two more white, square sheets with the same prayer. As I left the chapel it occurred to me to sift through other books in the bookcase. After going through roughly thirty books, I took out seventeen of these prayers. I threw them away.

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One thing is to have complete trust and faith that God will give me what I need, another is to think of God as a fairy God mother who is ready to swing his magic wand and grant me every single one of my wants and desires. This is why I find it dangerous to distribute a novena that states it has never failed. It gives the impression that God is a fairy God mother rather than the source of all being who sustains us in existence and orders all things in the universe for good.

When we lift up prayers of petition asking God for our needs and the needs of others, we must imitate the leper in Luke’s Gospel who fell prostrate before Jesus and said to him, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I do will it. Be made clean.” The leper approached Jesus with an openness to conform his will to the will of God. By his words, he places himself entirely at the mercy of Jesus. He doesn’t demand a cure with a “never fail novena”, but does trust that Jesus can heal him. The leper surrenders completely to the will of God, whatever it may be, and he is healed.

The leper does not impose his thoughts and opinions on Jesus nor does he try to convince or to control him. He does trust that Jesus has the power to heal him, but leaves it entirely up to Him to decide. Like the leper’s prayer, our prayers must express abandonment to God’s will, trusting that whatever God wills is best.

In the perfect prayer Jesus teaches us to pray, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Every prayer of petition must be accompanied by these words. Many times we approach God and say to him, “my will be done” rather than “thy will be done,” limiting Him with our own ideas rather than allowing Him to surprise us.

Of course we must ask, Jesus said after all, “ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you,” yet we must always remember that in all things we ask in faith, that God’s will be done. Otherwise we set ourselves up for an enormous disappointment.

God’s Will be Done