Prayer is about wrestling with God

    A grandfather was walking past his young granddaughter’s room one night when he saw her kneeling beside her bed. Her head was bowed, her hands folded, and she was repeating the alphabet. Grandpa was curious, so he interrupted her and asked, “What are you doing?” She answered, “I’m saying my prayers, but I couldn’t think of what I wanted to say, so I’m saying all the letters of the alphabet, and God can put them together however He thinks best.” 

How should we pray when we find ourselves facing stresses and struggles and problems and pressures we can’t handle and can’t escape? The death of a loved one, a difficult marriage, a chronic sickness that won’t go away, financial stress that seems sure to break us, worry about a direction-changing decision we must make, or even a sin we repented of and asked God to forgive that goes on haunting and hurting our conscience like a bad bruise. These kinds of stresses threaten to break our hearts and spirits. What in the world can we do when pain is stuck on our path?

Jesus’ experience in the Garden of Gethsemane, recorded in Matthew 26:36-46, helps us with issues in life that threaten our emotional, spiritual, and even our physical well-being. In that text the cross looms just hours away. Jesus sees it coming, and in Gethsemane He admits a storm of grief and dread is churning inside His holy heart. He tells Peter, James and John in verse 38, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.” Almost pitifully, He appeals to these three close friends, “Stay here and watch with Me.” He goes on to plead with God not once, not twice, but three times, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible,let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will . . . O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done” (verses 39, 42, 43). It is one of the most sacred scenes we are allowed to witness in all the Bible. 

In the magnificent but haunting words of William B. Tappan’s song, “ ‘Tis midnight, and from all removed, The Savior wrestles lone with fears; E’en that disciple whom He loved Heeds not His Master’s grief and tears” (second verse ‘Tis Midnight, and on Olive’s Brow; 1822). Jesus wanted God to take the cross away – but it is clear that as He “wrestled lone with fears” in prayer that night, He did what He had done throughout His mission to rescue mankind from sin – He surrendered His own will and committed Himself to God’s will, even though that meant agony and anguish and death on a cross.

Carl Sandburg tells that a delegation met with President Abraham Lincoln in the days of the Civil War. A minister expressed hope that “the Lord is on our side.” To the delegation’s amazement, Lincoln disagreed. “I am mot at all concerned about that, for we know the Lord is always on the side of right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side” (the one volume edition The Prairie Years – The War Years). Gethsemane teaches us a profound truth – prayer is not about bending God’s will to ours so that He takes the painful, cross-like experiences out of our lives.

On the contrary, Gethsemane teaches us prayer is about wrestling with God over the bitter cups and the grief-causing circumstances in our lives until we can pray, “Not my will, but Your will be done” – and then trust God as we move ahead. Wrestling with God’s will is a fight we win only when we lose! Think about it.