A Prayer for a Struggle With God’s Permissive Will

 

 

Almighty, eternal God, who has promised to care for Your own, Your participation in our lives is often hid in mystery.  It seems as though “we look through a glass darkly.”   Why      should some of Your most devoted followers suffer in poverty and pain?  Why do loving and committed couples, who pray and plead for a child, never have one?   Or even more mystifying, why do some couples have strong and healthy children while others have children with many special needs?   Why do some parents never stand at the graveside of a loved one, while others outlive their children.  Why do you permit a drunk driver to escape unharmed while an innocent pedestrian is killed in the cross walk?. Why do innocent people choose to ride on a train which a few hours later plows head on into a freight train leaving small children fatherless? Why do some, who have been brought up in the faith, wander away?   The list goes on and on.

 

We know that you could have prevented each of these tragic events, but You permitted them to happen, even to Your own.  The theologians refer to it as Your permissive will. You could have prevented it, for You are sovereign, but You permitted it for reasons known to You alone.  But why?  Why do You permit such things to happen to Your own?

 

Forgive us O God for asking.  We try so hard to understand You.  And when these things happen it often seems so unfair, so unjust, so out of character for You, whom we call our heavenly Father, to permit them to happen.

 

In our darkest hours, we confess to wondering if You really love us or if we really are Your children.  We confess that there are times when we are tempted to give up.  Does what we do make any difference to You?

 

Is it possible that You are addressing our questions in the record of the widow who, as Jesus said, “Gave all that she had.”  She was a widow.  She had buried her husband.  She was obviously poor for she was living on two copper coins a day.  She lived what we would call a hard and difficult life.  And yet, You compared her to the wealthy, the blessed who could give much.  Could it be that You were so moved by her gift because it was evidence that she loved, in spite of her circumstances?  Are You reminding us that in hard and difficult times, when Your permissive will has allowed things to happen to us, for reasons known only to You, that we are to love You, not for Your blessings but for Your being, not for Your goodness but for Your grace.  Are You testing us to see if we will be faithful even when life is demanding and disappointing?  It’s a question that calls for an answer.

 

Father, today we have not unlocked the mysteries surrounding Your permissive will, but thank You for teaching us to love You in good times and bad, in sickness and sorrow, in the sunshine and the rain.   

 

In the name of Him who knew what it is to struggle with Your permissive will.     Amen.