When God Does What He Wants and It’s Not What You Want

Yesterday, I taught the high school Sunday school class, spent time in worship at church, studied the Bible in the afternoon and worked on the Christian novel I’m writing. This morning I woke up, spent time praising God, read the Bible and focused myself in prayer for about an hour.

Flash forward to about eleven o’clock today and I get a call. Earlier, I’d prayed about a specific situation and I’d asked for some very specific things and guess what?

God did the opposite.

Like 180 degrees opposite of what I’d asked. Like, rather than the situation being improved it got devastatingly worse! Like the only way it could have been this bad is if He WAS listening and decided to negate every specific request quite specifically.

Did I feel rejected? Did I feel unloved? Did I feel like He was being unfair and that the answer to my prayer wasn’t exactly in line with what I deserved?

Well, yeah, actually.

Wouldn’t you?

But, once again, I thought about the passage I had just read in the book of Mark (you know, right before all that specific prayer). I had read through Mark 14 which is about the Last Supper (you remember it from the Da Vinci painting) and the night Jesus spent in the Garden of Gethsemane pleading with his Father to find another way.

It reads like this: “They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.” Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him. Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” (Mark 14: 32-42 NIV)

This is one of the most meaningful passages of scripture to me. I mean, at the dawn of time there was another garden and in that one, we were sold out by Adam and Eve who chose their own will over God’s. They ate the fruit and passed on the pit to every generation since.

But here, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus chooses God’s will over His own and the fruit of that choice is passed to whoever will receive it. Poetic. Cosmic. So like God.

What is important not to miss in all this is that Jesus asks His Father something very specific “Take this cup from me.” He calls God “Abba” which is roughly equivalent to “Papa”. Jesus was perfect. The Father was pleased with Jesus and said so. Jesus knew how to pray and prayed daily. Jesus walked with God but in this matter, God did not give Him the answer to His prayer – well, not that part of it. He answered the other part, “Yet, not what I will, but what you will.”

I want what I want. God knows that. What God wants is for me to trust Him – even when He doesn’t do what I want.

I’m working on it.

When I got that call today it was a setback in the moment but I knew – I knew my Abba, Father had heard me. I know He loves me. I know He is the center of all things, not me – not my life, not my requests. I know He works all things together for good for those who love Him – and I do.

And I remembered Jesus who made the right choice in the garden – a choice that led to the undoing of an ancient curse that had destroyed humankind from birth since the first generation.

Wow.

So tomorrow, I’ll get up and I will spend time praising God and I will study the Bible and I will focus in prayer and I will go deeper in this adventure with Jesus, deeper and deeper still because He is all the answer I really need.

Really.

Spent any time in the garden lately? What choice did you make?