wishing wishes

My freshman year of college I was introduced to a whole host of new things. One of them was the book by Elizabeth Elliot Passion and Purity. I remember pouring over the pages as I lay in my bed. I read it several times and talked about it about as much. A quote of hers continues to linger in my mind.

“How can God work his will in me if I am clogged with wishes of my own? Thy will be done. I was certainly in a state! ‘Clogged with wishes.’ I was wishing that my wishes were what God wished, and if my wishes were not what God wished, I wished that I could wish that my wishes would go away, but the wishes were still there.”

My dear friend Kimberly and I discussed the business of being clogged with wishes frequently during my first two years of college. But its reality has stayed with me ever since. It is quite a task to lay down one’s wishes in order to gain God’s wishes. It is a constant setting aside of one’s self. And, I believe must be the constant prayer of one’s heart. It is deciding to trust the Lord when it doesn’t make sense. It is believing that He is who He says He is. It is walking in simple and obedient faith.

My prayer today is one that was written on my heart long ago. As a young child, we would recite this every week in the little country church my family and I attended. We would corporately share this prayer just before the Word was read. Today this prayer rests on my lips often. It is no longer limited to that time in the service that we read the Word of God. Instead, it graces my day as I attempt to decipher between wishing the wishes that I wish and wishing the wishes that God wishes.

Prepare our hearts, O Lord, to accept Your word. Silence in us any voice but Your own, that hearing, we may obey Your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.