As people of faith, we have gotten accustomed to praying for our intentions. We form a close relationship with God and in that context, we lean into the heart of God asking tenderly for God’s gentle touch on our lives. We bring our intentions to God hoping that God will answer them. There is nothing wrong with this type of relationship with God. After all, God invites us into a relationship that is by its nature covenantal. God demands of us a mode of being in the world that centers God in it. In turn, God promises to show up for us.
It is this showing up for us by God that tends to be misunderstood most often by us. We tend to understand it in a manner that may not always be good for us. This is where the prayer of Jesus, as he was facing his final hours on earth, becomes a proper way of responding to God and understanding how God shows up. At the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus, faced with the reality of what was to befall him, broke down and in his grief, he laments and offers a prayer of complete resignation. In his plea for liberation from what was to happen to him that night, he surrenders himself completely to God and says, “Your will be done” (Matthew 26:42). But this prayer of Jesus must be placed where it belongs. Without the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 6:10, this prayer may be misunderstood. Early in his ministry, Jesus taught his followers the way to respond to the covenantal relationship that exists between humanity and God. He taught his followers how to pray by praying the famous prayer, OUR FATHER… In the prayer, he beckons on our supreme God who is Our Father to receive his surrendered humanity in its totality when he prayed in the formulary of the OUR FATHER the line, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.”
But prayer is not just about words. There are moments in our lives when what we pray and what we believe must play out in the embodied concreteness of our lives. That for Jesus played out at the Garden of Gethesemane. The OUR FATHER of that defined th ministry of Jesus was now going to be demonstrated in a real manner. Authenticity is a demand of the covenant that defines our relationship with God. Thus, when the time came for Jesus to back his teachings with his actions, he chose to embrace authenticity. He surrendered himself completely to God.
This approach of Jesus goes beyond the level of authenticity. It also helps to show us how to pray and to understand how God shows up for us. What we want may not always be what we need in our lives. This truth can be applied in all aspects of our lives. The OUR FATHER, and the submission of Jesus to the will of the Father at Gethsemane is a statement on opening up to God to give us what we need and not always what we want. Jesus wanted freedom from suffering as is a proper human response in the face of unjust suffering. But what he needed was to suffer because in his suffering, though unjust, his humanity and ours as well would be elevated into the glorified body worthy of the new vision of creation that God desires through His Son. What we need is always saturated with the possibilities of surprise that only when we open up to it can we see it clearly. What we need elevates us to new horizons of fulfillment and meaning. What we want is already stripped of all possibilities of surprise. In fact, what we want is itself saturated with a vision and possibility of scarcity. This is the irony of choice. What we want is all about rigid choice that can only go so far and then becomes harmful. But what we need is going beyond choice. It is about surrendering to God and letting God to surprise us. Surprise is where all the juice of growth can be found. It disrupts our modes of thinking. It forces us to look up and become more conscious. It allows us to ritualize the virtue of gratitude. It invites us to enter into a mode of living that is defined by solidarity. It invites us to say to see our hidden talents and abilities that we may never have explored in the past. It sparks in us existential curiosity to understand what meaning is install for us as we embrace that which has been given to us to satisfy our needs. it centers humility as the mode of living for us.
This approach is what we ought to learn as we enter into a relationship with God. Learning to pray is all about learning to see ourselves in a new way. Through our turn to a phenomenology of need, we learn to center God in our lives which the phenomenology of want is unable to do in a healthy manner.
Reflection – February 4, 2024.
Simon Aihiokhai Blogs 
Hello Simon, I found your piece insightful, especially in reconciling the tension between human wants and the Divine Will.
My conflict however, resides in the practice of SURRENDRY. Is it an active-passive that diligently goes about life activities and choices while trusting that God will always somehow write straight lines even on crooked paths?
Or a passive-active that eliminates or suspends human actions and choices in anticipation of a Divine Intervention that will put us on the track of the Divine Will?
How much of suffering should be embraced as the Will of God, without struggle or an attempt to rescue ourselves (Ignatius of Antioch)? Since unlike Christ we may not have the solid premonition to know what sufferings are inevitably necessary for our salvation and self-actualisation.
Thank you.
I like your insightful questions. I do think that to surrender involves both approaches you brought up in your response. Surrender is discernment. Discernment involves active deliberation on one’s current condition and embracing the courage to move on. It can also sometimes being passive. But what is most important is that one responds with a clear desire to embrace abundant life and joy. God desires that we experience joy and abundant life. If God wants us to carry our crosses, in doing so, we should also experience God’s inner joy in our lives. I hope this helps.
It absolutely does.
Thanks immensely.