Choosing God's way

Have you ever been at the end of your tether, wondering why God isn't answering your crying need?

Catherine Marshall was in that state in 1943, bed-bound for six months with a serious lung infection that doctors were unable to solve.  She had been praying persistently for a long time with no change.

In her book Adventures in Prayer, she tells how she turned to God and said: "I'm tired of asking . . . I'm beaten, finished.  God, You decide what You want for me."

And she goes on: "It was if I had touched a button that opened windows in heaven; as if some heavenly dynamo of 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."

She calls this the "Prayer of Relinquishment" because she gave up her own will for God's.  Like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, she said, in effect: "Not my will, but yours, be done."

Catherine Marshall warns us not to expect that we will get what we want simply by saying that we will do what God wants.  We have to be ready to obey, whatever the cost.  But the benefits of God's peace and joy are worth the sacrifice.

As she says: "The Prayer of Relinquishment is the child dropping his rebellion against being a child, placing his hand in the big, protective hand of the Father, and trusting Him to lead us even in the dark."