“Father, whether it is your will, please heal your servant; yet not our will, but yours be done.” As a toddler, I recall hearing this sort of prayer and feeling deeply puzzled. If it’s your will? I believed. Why wouldn’t it’s God’s will to heal his servant?
Such prayers should not theologically incorrect—they echo the words of Christ himself and, rightly understood, believers ought to hope likewise. But wrongly understood, such prayers could be deeply confusing and troubling.
Imagine a young girl hearing people pray those words for her mother suffering with terminal cancer. What is she to think? Why wouldn’t God need to heal mommy—does he want her to suffer and die? Doesn’t God love mommy and me?
Even essentially the most spiritually mature adults can struggle with the aim and effect of their prayers—particularly when God seems absent or silent of their hour of biggest need, despite how faithfully and fervently they pray. If God is perfectly good, all-powerful, and knows our needs before we ask (as Jesus himself taught in Matthew 6:8), how could our prayers make any difference in God’s motion? Wouldn’t God already know, will, and do whatever is preferable no matter whether or how we pray?
These should not easy inquiries to answer, and they bring about up sticky theological quandaries, akin to how God’s sovereignty and human free will could possibly coexist. On this issue, Christians land on various parts of a spectrum, seeing it as some type of divine determinism, an optimistic vision of human partnership with God, or something else. Some see prayer primarily as a private devotional practice that doesn’t influence divine motion, while others assume that unanswered prayers reflect the shortage of religion of those praying.
In cases akin to these, it’s critical that we return to the biblical text. And specifically, we will learn much from the instance of how Jesus himself prayed within the New Testament.
The gospel writers record the words of Jesus’ prayers on a limited variety of occasions. Among these are the Lord’s Prayer, the High Priestly Prayer in John 17, and Christ’s prayers within the garden of Gethsemane shortly before his death, during which he was in a lot anguish that he sweat blood. Though transient, Christ’s prayers in Gethsemane are especially profound and shed significant light on easy methods to pray faithfully amid such questions.
It was the night before Jesus was to be crucified. In deep distress, he withdrew to hope, as he often did. Enveloped by profound darkness, “overwhelmed with sorrow to the purpose of death” (Matt. 26:38), Jesus instructed his disciples to hope, moved a bit way off, and “fell along with his face to the bottom,” praying, “My Father, if it is feasible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I’ll, but as you’ll” (Matt. 26:39).
If it is feasible? How could anything not be possible for God? Jesus also prayed, “Father! All things are possible for You” (Mark 14:36, NASB). Why, then, did he pray, “if it is feasible”?
Taken together, these verses indicate that, in a single sense, all things are possible for God—as all-powerful, God can do anything that doesn’t involve a logical contradiction. But in one other sense, some outcomes may not be possible for God —for instance, those who require him to interrupt his guarantees, behave contrary to his nature, or act against his overarching will.
Could Christ have avoided the cross? He definitely possessed the facility to accomplish that. Later, when Peter tried to save lots of Jesus by cutting off the ear of considered one of those sent to arrest him, Jesus rebuked him and said, “Do you’re thinking that I cannot call on my Father, and he’ll without delay put at my disposal greater than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must occur in this fashion?” (Matt. 26:53–54).
The real query is, could Christ have avoided the cross and still saved sinners? To which the reply appears to be no. This passage shows us that it must not have been possible for Christ to meet his overarching mission—to save lots of the world from sin and defeat suffering and death itself—without facing the cross.
“If it is feasible” seems to point that some avenues should not available to God consistent with his goals and commitments. God was committed to justifying sinners (while himself remaining perfectly just) and to demonstrating his love in such a way that darkness can be defeated for good (Rom. 3:25–26; 5:8; Rev. 21:4). Because of this, God couldn’t bring about his greater desire of saving humans without the suffering of the cross. In the final word act of affection and justice, Jesus willingly selected to put down his life (John 1:17–18) and “for the enjoyment set before him he endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2).
But Christ’s midnight prayer within the garden of Gethsemane didn’t end there. After praying, “if it is feasible, may this cup be taken from me,” he added, “yet not as I’ll, but as you’ll” (Matt. 26:39). Later, Christ prayed twice more, “My Father, if it is just not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your shall be done” (vv. 42, 44). Interestingly, this last phrase appears earlier within the Book of Matthew when Jesus teaches his followers easy methods to pray within the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9–13). Understanding this context sheds much more light on Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane.
The Lord’s Prayer includes seven petitions, starting with “hallowed [or sanctified] be your name;” “your kingdom come;” and “your shall be done, on earth because it is in heaven” (vv. 9–10). These first three petitions are closely related. Praying that God’s shall be done on earth as in heaven suggests his will is just not all the time done—at the least not here and now. Likewise, praying for God’s kingdom to come back indicates that it has not yet been fully realized in our midst.
Importantly, asking for God’s name to be hallowed (sanctified) points to a necessity for God’s name (repute) to be vindicated. Yet God’s name can’t be vindicated in full unless and until evil is defeated and the enemy’s kingdom is uprooted. So, the primary three petitions ultimately point to the last—“deliver us from the evil one” (v. 13)—because praying for God’s name to be hallowed is to hope for his kingdom to come back and his will to be done. In David Crump’s words, “Just as praying for the dominion to come back is to ask for the sanctification of God’s name, so too is it asking for the Father’s ‘will to be done.’”
In these ways and others, the Lord’s Prayer points to an ongoing cosmic conflict between God’s kingdom of sunshine and the devil’s temporary kingdom of darkness (Rev. 12:7–10).
Jesus himself repeatedly identifies the devil because the “ruler of this world” (John 12:31 NASB), indicating Satan possesses some real (though limited and temporary) rulership on this world, though his end is rapidly approaching (Rev. 12:12, Rom. 16:20). We know the devil deceives the entire world (Rev. 12:9), works against God’s will (Eph 6:11–12) and threatens God’s kingdom (Acts 26:18). Yet, at every turn, Christ counters and undoes the devil’s schemes.
As Brian Han Gregg notes, the “conflict between God and Satan is clearly a central feature of Jesus’ teaching and ministry.” Indeed, Christ “appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8, NASB) in order that “by his death he might break the facility of him who holds the facility of death—that’s, the devil” (Heb. 2:14).
The cosmic conflict between God and Satan is just not a conflict of power alone since no creature could engage in conflict with the all-powerful God at his level of sheer power. Instead, the Bible portrays it as a conflict over the devil’s slanderous allegations against God’s name (Job 1–2; Rev. 12:9–11). God couldn’t refute such accusations by a show of power, but only by demonstrating his love and righteousness (Rom. 3:25-26; 5:8)—manifested supremely in Christ’s atoning work, and which ushered in his kingdom.
I say way more about how this cosmic conflict framework sheds light on petitionary prayer in my upcoming book, but here, it’s sufficient to say that prayer sometimes makes a difference relative to what avenues are “morally available” to God consistent with his guarantees and commitments—including what I call the “rules of engagement” within the cosmic conflict (see, as an example, Jesus’ remarks in Mark 9:29).
How, then, should we pray this side of heaven, through which “the entire world lies in the facility of the evil one” (1 John 5:19, NASB)? In short, we will pray like Jesus within the garden of Gethsemane. Especially after we’re facing times of profound suffering and darkness in our lives, we will pray not only that God’s shall be done but in addition, “if it is feasible, may this cup be taken.”
It was not the Father’s desire or preference that Christ should suffer and die—as Scripture tells us, God takes no pleasure in anyone’s death (2 Pet. 3:9; Ezek. 18:32), let alone that of his beloved Son. Yet Isaiah says, “It was the Lord’s will to crush him” (53:10). In what sense? Strictly because this was God’s only path to redeem sinners and save the cosmos from darkness.
God’s will to treatment all that has gone unsuitable in our fallen world is what I call his remedial will. This is distinct from his ideal will—which Scripture makes clear was, from the start, that no sin, evil, or suffering would have occurred in any respect.
With this understanding, we will pray for deliverance from suffering and death with confidence that such prayer aligns with God’s ideal will. Yet we also recognize God’s remedial will might take one other course as a consequence of countless other aspects within the cosmic conflict, a lot of which we cannot see. As such, we must always follow Christ in praying, “if it is feasible”—given what is obtainable and preferable, and given every part God knows about all aspects involved, whether seen or unseen.
However we pray, this cosmic-conflict framework highlights that there are way more aspects involved in regard to God’s motion (and apparent inaction) than we will fathom. We may ask for reprieve from whatever trial we or a loved one could be facing, but while doing so, we must always recognize that God takes into consideration many aspects which are unseen from our perspective. As such, we may fervently pray for God’s intervention, perhaps sometimes even crying out to God that we feel forsaken by him (Matt. 27:46).
At the tip of the day, we will know that God doesn’t desire or take enjoyment of our pain. Instead, he chooses to align himself with all human suffering within the person of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, we will place our trust in God’s unwavering goodness, justice, and love—which Christ made unmistakably clear in his death on the cross.
John C. Peckham is research professor of theology and Christian philosophy at Andrews University. His forthcoming book is Why We Pray: Understanding Prayer within the Context of Cosmic Conflict.
