Post by MIRIAM JACOB on Feb 27, 2012 23:13:48 GMT -5
THE PRAYER OF RELINQUISHMENT
by Catherine Marshall
When I first began active
experimentation with prayer,
I was full of questions such as:
why are some agonizingly
sincere prayers granted,
while others are not?
Today I still have questions.
Mysteries about prayer
are always ahead of knowledge
– luring, beckoning on
to further experimentation.
But one thing I do know;
I learned it through hard experience.
It’s a way of prayer that has resulted
consistently in a glorious answer
because each time, power
beyond human reckoning
has been released.
This is the prayer of relinquishment.
I got my first glimpse of it in 1943.
I had then been ill for six months
with a widespread lung infection, and
a bevy of specialists seemed unable to help.
Persistent prayer,
using all the faith I could muster,
had resulted in – nothing.
One afternoon, a pamphlet was put in my hands.
It was the story of a missionary
who had been invalid for eight years.
Constantly, she had prayed that
God would make her well, so
that she might do His work.
Finally, worn out with futile petition, she prayed,
“All right, I give up.
If You want me to be an invalid, that’s Your business.
I want You even more than I want health.
You decide.”
Within two weeks, the woman was out of bed, completely well.
This made no sense to me, yet I could not forget the story.
On the morning of September 14 – how can I ever forget the date?
I came to the same point of abject acceptance.
“I’m tired of asking,” was the burden of my prayer.
“I’m beaten, finished. God, You decide what You want for me.”
Tears flowed. I felt no faith as I understood faith, expected nothing.
And the result? It was as if
I had touched a button
that opened windows in heaven;
as if some dynamo of heavenly power
began flowing, flowing.
Within a few hours, I had experienced
the presence of the Living Christ in a way
that wiped away all doubt
and revolutionized my life.
From that moment,
my recovery began.
Through this incident, God was trying to teach me
something important about prayer.
Gradually, I saw that a demanding spirit,
with self-will as its rudder, blocks prayer.
I understood that the reason for this is that
God absolutely refuses to violate our free will;
unless self-will is voluntarily given up,
even God cannot move to answer prayer.
Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane
is this pattern for us.
Christ could have avoided the Cross.
He did not have to go up to Jerusalem the last time.
He could have compromised with the priests,
bargained with Caiaphas.
He could have capitalized on His following
and appeased Judas by setting up
the beginning of an earthly Kingdom.
Pilate wanted to release Him,
all but begged Him to say the right words
that would let him do so.
Even in the Garden on the night of the betrayal,
He had plenty of time and opportunity to flee.
Instead, Christ used His free will
to turn the decision over to His Father.
The Phillips translation of the Gospels
brings Jesus’ prayer into special focus:
“Dear Father… all things are possible to You.
Let me not have to drink this cup!
Yet it is not what I want, but what You want.”
The prayer was not answered as the human Jesus wished.
Yet power has been flowing from His Cross ever since.
Even at the moment when Christ was bowing
to the possibility of an awful death by crucifixion,
He never forgot either the presence
or the power of God.
There is a crucial difference here
between acceptance and resignation.
There is no resignation in the prayer of relinquishment.
Resignation says,
“This is my situation,
and I resign myself
and settle down to it.”
Resignation lies down
in the dust of a godless universe
and steels itself for the worst.
Acceptance says,
“True, this is my situation at the moment.
I’ll look unblinkingly at the reality of it.
But, I’ll also open up my hands to accept
willingly whatever a loving Father sends.”
Thus acceptance never slams the door on hope.
Yet, even while it hopes,
our relinquishment must be the real thing
– and this giving up of self will is the hardest thing
we human beings are ever called to do.
It’s good to remember that
not even the Master Shepherd can lead
if the sheep do not follow Him.
That’s the why of Christ’s insistence
of a very practical obedience:
And why call ye me, Lord, Lord,
and do not the things which I say?
Obey… obedience … trust… is all over the Gospels.
The pliability of an obedient heart must be complete
from the set of our wills right on through our actions.
So we take the first hard steps of obedience.
And lo, as we stop hiding our eyes,
force ourselves to walk up to the fear
and look it full in the face –
never forgetting that God and His power
are still the supreme reality
– the fear evaporates.
Drastic? Yes. But it is one sure way of
releasing prayer power into human affairs.
In the prayer of faith,
our hand is still in His.
Our heart is still obedient.
But now, He has led us out of the frightening darkness,
with only the pressure of His hand to reassure us,
into the sunlight. We look into the face beside us
with a thrill of recognition –
the hand of the Father is Jesus’ hand!
All along, our heart told us it was so.
Relinquishment? Faith? Just daring to trust Jesus.
Father, for such a long time
I have pleaded before You this,
the deep desire of my heart:_______.
Yet, the more I have clamored for Your help with this,
the more remote You have seemed.
I confess my demanding spirit in this matter.
I've tried suggesting to You ways
my prayer could be answered.
To my shame, I have even bargained with You.
Yet I know thattrying to manipulate
the Lord of the Universe
is utter foolishness.
I want to trust You, Father.
My spirit knows that these verities
are forever trustworthy
even when I feel nothing.
That You are there...
That You love me...
That You alone know what is best for me...
Perhaps all along,
You have been waiting
for me to give up self-effort.
At last, I want You in my life
even more than I want ________.
So now, by an act of my will,
I relinquish this to You.
I will accept Your will,
whatever that may be.
Thank You for counting this act of my will
as a decision of the real person
even when my emotions protest.
I ask You to hold me true to this decision.
To You, Lord God, who alone are worthy of worship,
I bend the knee with thanksgiving that
this too will work together for my good.
I relinquish this to You.
Amen.
by Catherine Marshall
When I first began active
experimentation with prayer,
I was full of questions such as:
why are some agonizingly
sincere prayers granted,
while others are not?
Today I still have questions.
Mysteries about prayer
are always ahead of knowledge
– luring, beckoning on
to further experimentation.
But one thing I do know;
I learned it through hard experience.
It’s a way of prayer that has resulted
consistently in a glorious answer
because each time, power
beyond human reckoning
has been released.
This is the prayer of relinquishment.
I got my first glimpse of it in 1943.
I had then been ill for six months
with a widespread lung infection, and
a bevy of specialists seemed unable to help.
Persistent prayer,
using all the faith I could muster,
had resulted in – nothing.
One afternoon, a pamphlet was put in my hands.
It was the story of a missionary
who had been invalid for eight years.
Constantly, she had prayed that
God would make her well, so
that she might do His work.
Finally, worn out with futile petition, she prayed,
“All right, I give up.
If You want me to be an invalid, that’s Your business.
I want You even more than I want health.
You decide.”
Within two weeks, the woman was out of bed, completely well.
This made no sense to me, yet I could not forget the story.
On the morning of September 14 – how can I ever forget the date?
I came to the same point of abject acceptance.
“I’m tired of asking,” was the burden of my prayer.
“I’m beaten, finished. God, You decide what You want for me.”
Tears flowed. I felt no faith as I understood faith, expected nothing.
And the result? It was as if
I had touched a button
that opened windows in heaven;
as if some dynamo of heavenly power
began flowing, flowing.
Within a few hours, I had experienced
the presence of the Living Christ in a way
that wiped away all doubt
and revolutionized my life.
From that moment,
my recovery began.
Through this incident, God was trying to teach me
something important about prayer.
Gradually, I saw that a demanding spirit,
with self-will as its rudder, blocks prayer.
I understood that the reason for this is that
God absolutely refuses to violate our free will;
unless self-will is voluntarily given up,
even God cannot move to answer prayer.
Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane
is this pattern for us.
Christ could have avoided the Cross.
He did not have to go up to Jerusalem the last time.
He could have compromised with the priests,
bargained with Caiaphas.
He could have capitalized on His following
and appeased Judas by setting up
the beginning of an earthly Kingdom.
Pilate wanted to release Him,
all but begged Him to say the right words
that would let him do so.
Even in the Garden on the night of the betrayal,
He had plenty of time and opportunity to flee.
Instead, Christ used His free will
to turn the decision over to His Father.
The Phillips translation of the Gospels
brings Jesus’ prayer into special focus:
“Dear Father… all things are possible to You.
Let me not have to drink this cup!
Yet it is not what I want, but what You want.”
The prayer was not answered as the human Jesus wished.
Yet power has been flowing from His Cross ever since.
Even at the moment when Christ was bowing
to the possibility of an awful death by crucifixion,
He never forgot either the presence
or the power of God.
There is a crucial difference here
between acceptance and resignation.
There is no resignation in the prayer of relinquishment.
Resignation says,
“This is my situation,
and I resign myself
and settle down to it.”
Resignation lies down
in the dust of a godless universe
and steels itself for the worst.
Acceptance says,
“True, this is my situation at the moment.
I’ll look unblinkingly at the reality of it.
But, I’ll also open up my hands to accept
willingly whatever a loving Father sends.”
Thus acceptance never slams the door on hope.
Yet, even while it hopes,
our relinquishment must be the real thing
– and this giving up of self will is the hardest thing
we human beings are ever called to do.
It’s good to remember that
not even the Master Shepherd can lead
if the sheep do not follow Him.
That’s the why of Christ’s insistence
of a very practical obedience:
And why call ye me, Lord, Lord,
and do not the things which I say?
Obey… obedience … trust… is all over the Gospels.
The pliability of an obedient heart must be complete
from the set of our wills right on through our actions.
So we take the first hard steps of obedience.
And lo, as we stop hiding our eyes,
force ourselves to walk up to the fear
and look it full in the face –
never forgetting that God and His power
are still the supreme reality
– the fear evaporates.
Drastic? Yes. But it is one sure way of
releasing prayer power into human affairs.
In the prayer of faith,
our hand is still in His.
Our heart is still obedient.
But now, He has led us out of the frightening darkness,
with only the pressure of His hand to reassure us,
into the sunlight. We look into the face beside us
with a thrill of recognition –
the hand of the Father is Jesus’ hand!
All along, our heart told us it was so.
Relinquishment? Faith? Just daring to trust Jesus.
Father, for such a long time
I have pleaded before You this,
the deep desire of my heart:_______.
Yet, the more I have clamored for Your help with this,
the more remote You have seemed.
I confess my demanding spirit in this matter.
I've tried suggesting to You ways
my prayer could be answered.
To my shame, I have even bargained with You.
Yet I know thattrying to manipulate
the Lord of the Universe
is utter foolishness.
I want to trust You, Father.
My spirit knows that these verities
are forever trustworthy
even when I feel nothing.
That You are there...
That You love me...
That You alone know what is best for me...
Perhaps all along,
You have been waiting
for me to give up self-effort.
At last, I want You in my life
even more than I want ________.
So now, by an act of my will,
I relinquish this to You.
I will accept Your will,
whatever that may be.
Thank You for counting this act of my will
as a decision of the real person
even when my emotions protest.
I ask You to hold me true to this decision.
To You, Lord God, who alone are worthy of worship,
I bend the knee with thanksgiving that
this too will work together for my good.
I relinquish this to You.
Amen.