Amend my will to God

By John Pearring

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010921.cfm
1 John 5:14-21
John 3:22-30

1 John again begins our readings for the new year. John’s teachings for believers, mantras for our strength and solace, continue also. This past Saturday’s selection pronounces seven spiritually helpful verses from chapter five. They remind us about how our intimacy with God reboots our handle on the truth.

And the truth hurts. I can’t get beyond the second verse. John first verse begins with a tenet of God’s character. 

We have this confidence in him
that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 

There’s a catch in there. First, before all else we must remember we have confidence in God’s awareness of our pleas. This is the bastion of Judeo-Christian faith. We are confident in God. In this reference, that confidence is not just that God hears us. It’s how God listens to our prayers. We ask, and he hears our personal pleas.

This sounds pretty good. Believers have this confidence built in when we decide to follow God. If we haven’t learned to be fully confident in God it’s not because we can’t be. It’s because we’re too practiced about not being confident, and not practiced in tracking what he’s doing in our lives. We know we should be assured that God’s listening. We just may not be that experienced, and therefore not totally convinced.

Now for the difficult part, which sits right in the middle. It’s also straight forward. We must ask, pray, and plea “according to his will.” With our confidence in God firm and certain, we have to come to him with our desires aligned to his will. 

God’s will is the key part of this verse. Yes, we’re aware that God is there. We’re aware God loves us. What’s not so clear to us is that what we are doing is rooted in God’s will rather than our own. How can we know that our will has been aligned purposely with God? 

Alignment can only be revealed by active participation and cooperation with God. It’s similar to properly aligned tires. It takes time and technique to get both the wheels and the suspension aligned in a car. You can tell if the alignment is out by the way the tires wear. Evenly worn tires confirm proper alignment. You’ll have to take this analogy from here regarding your wheel alignment.

I find this differentiation regarding God’s will and our will a huge challenge. Aligned wills, like assured confidence, is a requirement for an intimate relationship with God. I must practice confidence in God before coming to him in my prayer. I also be sure to tune up my “will” alignment to God. 

Prayers build up our confidence in God slowly. We need to track what we ask of God and watch what he does. So too, goes the alignment of my will. This slow process of both confidence and alignment start out with difficulty. We have to blindly begin confident in God. It’s basically faking it until we make it. Alignment is even harder. I begin by bending my will to God. That’s not a mature, or even healthy aligning of my will. It’s counter intuitive.

Bending our will starts out by forcing us “according” to his will. Bending is more violent than loving. Bending my will means I’m still holding onto my will, much like a contortionist crams himself into a box. Instead of being “like” God, loving like he does, acting as he prompts me, and being fully invested in that love, I simply twist myself into a position not familiar to my posture. I’m a square peg, but I round out my edges in order to fit into his round embrace. 

After a few minutes of being crammed into a faked position I’m gonna need to unravel and stretch back into my actual squared profile. It’s an impressive thing if I can fake it. Worthy even of applause. But, it’s not the “according to” that John is talking about. It’s more of an accordion to, a stretching and shrinking to fabricate or simulate God’s will. I’m told, though, that the discipline of alignment is worth the trouble.

Rather than bend, I must amend. God’s will and mine should look seamless. Like confidence in God, we fake it for awhile, until we’re convinced. Until we’re aligned properly the same difficulty exists. Once we’re aligned there’s no more twisting and shoving.

I’m quite sure that my amending to God is not where it should be, while I am convinced he is listening to me. I can tell, because of the next verse.

And if we know that he hears us in regard to whatever we ask,
we know that what we have asked him for is ours. 

In truth, this and the next four verses are practically useless for a believer if the first two verses don’t aptly define our relationship to God. 

I’ve got a hunch that most believers are like me — inadequately aligned to God’s will. Seldom do any of us extend the confidence we have in God hearing us into a solid expectation. I can know God’s response afterwards, when I see the proof of his work. I do not yet know, before God has done anything, that he is going to give me what I ask at my prayer request. I still worry and wonder and doubt.

God has convinced me, as I’m sure he has convinced you, that he hears me and answers my prayers. I am better at this part. I am not assured that my will aligns with him as I make my pleas, though. I’m still very much the contortionist. Consequently, I do not yet know that what I have asked him is mine.

This is definitely something worth working toward, and looking forward to.