While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.

(Lk 5.12&13)

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down, and prayed. “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

(Lk 22.39-42)

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

(Jas 4.13-15)

I wonder if you, like me, can identify with the leper in his words to Jesus – “IF you are willing..”? I share the leper’s conviction that Jesus has power to save, to deliver from disease and death. I also share his awareness that it is not for us to dictate to the Sovereign King of all kings, the Ruler of God’s kingdom, the precise ways in which He should exercise that power. It is not for us to grasp every pixel in the big picture, to hold together all the threads of history as it is woven through the lives of millions, across countless thousands of years. We cannot know in detail at any one time just exactly what is best – either for ourselves, our loved ones, or our nation.

If.. is such a little word, but it holds all the dreary and debilitating power of doubt to hold us back from trusting God with all our desires, hopes and fears. We know that down the centuries, God’s children have prayed for peace and had to endure war; they have prayed for rain, and had to watch their children die due to drought; they have prayed for godly leaders, and had to endure persecution, and the authoritarian exercise of power explicitly denying God’s existence. We know from our own experience that faith in Jesus Christ as Lord of Lords and King of Kings does not give us all that we pray for, and we wrestle with disappointment, unanswered questions, crippling grief.

Is God not willing then? Have we misunderstood? I don’t think there are any straightforward responses to this little word, and the massive challenges it raises. But what do we see when Jesus used it? We see an agonised but complete submission to God’s will; a determination to surrender himself to the Love which planned the overturning of human bondage to sin and death, in spite of the price which he would personally pay.

We are called to live as those acutely aware of the frailty of life; of the uncertainty which shrouds our lives even only 24 hours ahead. God asks us to take our hands off the controls (since being ‘in control’ is an illusion in any case), and to let Him be in charge of the world and our lives. We may not always know what God might do in a particular situation – even as the leper was unsure when Jesus came to him that day – but we can always pray for God’s will to be done. We can pray with thanksgiving that in every situation, we have Christ with us and for him to be working in those situations for his glory and our blessing. We can pray for Jesus name to be honoured and for his kingdom to come, heart-by-heart, home-by-home, in our world. We can pray for the Spirit within to motivate and enable us to witness to others by word and deed. We can pray for one another as believers, that we might persevere and grow in our faith, hope and love. We can pray for those who do not believe, that they will repent and return to God before it is too late – since we know that God longs for all his children to know him..

Beloved, let us pray and not lose heart, but, confessing our doubts, bring all our burdens to God, and commit ourselves to submission to his will and obedience to his word. Let unanswered prayer, and especially what look like ‘failed’ prayers bring us quickly to God’s throne in renewed dependence, so that the devil may not render us helpless in despair. Let us pray…