It Hurts So Much
So much suffering in our world. Yesterday’s headlines bore more bad news. I read in Dr. Jim Denison’s daily article that the beloved Senior Pastor of Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Bryan Dunnigan, age 44, passed away in his sleep due to natural causes. He leaves behind his wife and three children. Many are grieving deeply today.
I also read about the massive manhunt for the gunman who killed 18 people in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. Hurricane Otis killed over 27 people in Acapulco and devastated the region. And Israel’s military is preparing for a wider ground attack into Gaza in their hunt for Hamas terrorists.
Regardless of background, every person who dies will be grieved by someone. Such grief is unspeakably unnatural. When it looks like God’s back is turned away from His kids, it isn’t so. God gave us His Word for times like this. God gave us His Son for times like this.
Hebrews 5:8 says, “Even though Jesus was God’s Son, He learned obedience from the things he suffered.” Luke 22:41-42 says, “Jesus walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt and prayed, ‘Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.’” Luke 22:41-42
It is times like this that I want to question God’s methods, timing, and plan. Why do bad things happen to good people? As I ask for God’s will to be done, I recoil when God’s will isn’t my will be done.
It’s hard to imagine waiting instead of moving, and yet, Jesus often did. He had all the answers, power, and ability to turn back time and hold death at bay, and yet — He didn’t. Because Jesus was serious when He offered up the prayer, “Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.’” (Luke 22:42).
How many of our prayers does God answer when we impatiently demand Him to, versus when He deems the time is right? How often does He wait to respond until the moment when His power can be best revealed? How many dreams does God plan to resurrect, perhaps after they’re dead and forgotten, as He’s merely waiting for us to surrender — to stop trying to solve all the problems ourselves?
We expect to tell Him exactly how and when plans should unfold, instead of opening our hands and acknowledging His ways are higher than our ways and His will is so much better than our will.
Jesus’ radical, continual and humble submission to the ways and will of His Father is the greatest example of what it means to fully trust and obey. What would happen if, when we came to God with our list of requests, we opened our hands and prayed like Jesus did: “Not my will, but Yours be done” …?
Father God, I am not asking You for the “whys” today, but I am asking for the determination to be obedient as Jesus was. Please help me to hear and know Your voice and to willingly obey whatever You are asking of me — without arguing, begging, or trying to convince You that I know what’s best. I want to choose obedience, and see Your will be done — instead of my own.
In Jesus’ Name, I pray, Amen.