Take Up Your CrossPrimjer

Not My Will

Autism affects more than 3.5 million people in America. With nearly one out of every 68 babies born being diagnosed with some form of the disorder, chances are that we all know someone who has been impacted.

This wasn’t always the case. Thirty years ago the chances of developing autism were listed at only 1 in 10,000. Most doctors had never seen it, and those that had didn’t have much hope that anything could be done for it.

When the doctors returned with my brother’s initial diagnosis, they did so with documents in hand. After a brief explanation of his grim prognosis, they asked my parents to declare my brother a ward of the state and have him institutionalized immediately.

As a million different emotions fought for control of our hearts, one truth was clear to us. The doctors didn’t know our God. They might not know what to do with my brother, but we did. We stormed out of the office, determined to take my brother before the Lord in prayer.

And pray we did. Our family prayed, our friends prayed, our church prayed. We prayed for years without ceasing that he would be healed. But for reasons we may never know, God’s answer has been no, or at least so far.

Many people told us that there must be hidden unconfessed sin blocking God’s answer, so we confessed more and tried harder. They told us we lacked faith, so we doubted less and believed stronger. We tried everything they suggested, but God still refused to heal him.

When Jesus prayed for deliverance in the Garden of Gethsemane, He didn’t get the answer that He wanted either. Three times the sinless, perfect Son of God asked His Father to say yes, and three times His Father said no.

Even though Jesus didn’t want to endure the pain of the cross, He did. He trusted that His Father would use his pain to achieve something glorious and it did. His pain created a pathway for mankind to be reconciled with God.

While our pain will never come close to achieving such a grand purpose, like Jesus, we can trust that God knows what He is doing. Sometimes the best thing that we can do is to simply say “Thy will be done.”

How can Jesus’ story help you trust God when things don’t go your way?

For more help read, “Does Prayer Really Do Any Good” on FamilyLife.com.