Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Why do we always pray, "Thy will be done" when we pray for someone very sick? We give the Lord an excuse not to answer our prayer! Why don't we exercise more confidence and pray for the miracle of healing? "Our will be done!" Isn't that faith?
There was once a very good king on David's throne who did everything right, who became mortally sick. Hezekiah was young, only about 40, when Isaiah told him his sickness would end in death (38:1-3). He prayed for healing with no "Thy will be done."
The Lord granted his demand, adding 15 years (vs. 5). But they became a curse; he sired Manasseh, the worst king ever to sit on David's throne (he led the kingdom to eventual ruin, Jer. 15:4); he allowed pride and vanity to defile his life record; he invited the Babylonians to covet his kingdom's wealth (Isa. 39:1-8).
Hezekiah was healed, but we read that "God withdrew from him, in order to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart" (2 Chron. 32:31). He became an example of unknown sin. He would have been wise if he had prayed, "Lord, heal me, if it be Thy will." He could have been the finest king ever to sit on David's throne, but he left a sad record of the horror of self-righteousness. "I have walked before You ... with a loyal heart," he claimed tearfully. Pathetic! Maybe in the past; but he didn't know the truth of what was in his heart. It all came out in the future.
There are some things worse than death. The Lord granted Elisha more miracles in answer to prayer than any other prophet; yet when he became ill the Lord chose to let him die of his illness (2 Kings 13:14). In the judgment day at last, Elisha will be glad he agreed for God's will to be done. "God is love [agape]," all the way through.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: October 5, 2004.
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