{"id":2746,"date":"2008-10-02T17:56:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-02T17:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/when-thy-will-may-not-be-my-will.html"},"modified":"2008-10-02T17:56:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-02T17:56:00","slug":"when-thy-will-may-not-be-my-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/when-thy-will-may-not-be-my-will.html","title":{"rendered":"When “thy will” may not be MY will"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, this really hit home. <\/p>\n

Over at The Anchoress, the venerable A herself has knocked one out of the park on the subject of prayer and fasting<\/a>: <\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking we\u2019re in the middle of a mystery, that this whole, odd, unpredictable and too-long election season has been run along one of those threads connecting things seen and unseen, and we are so disoriented today that we do not really know which outcome is the outcome pleasing to God, and meant – by Him – to draw us into Himself.<\/p>\n

The Holy Spirit, of course, uses whatever He chooses, to bring things about. Who knows if we are meant to be shaken, soundly, in order to be roused from our complacency and the status quo?<\/p>\n

The sense I have is that the status quo won\u2019t do any longer. That we are stagnant, too deeply comfortable in too much of the muck and mud of materialism, and we\u2019ve lost sight of what and who we are meant to cling to.<\/p>\n

So, let us not worry. Let us not wring our hands. For the Christian, anyway, I believe we are in a moment where the rubber meets the road. How do you respond to that? With trust that no matter what things seem like, that \u201call things work for good and to the Glory of God\u201d or with wringing hands, depression and doubt?<\/p>\n

If you are doubting\u2026if you are thinking that only electoral victory – as defined by the world – will be a validation of either the existence of God, or His Intent, then you need to hunker down into scripture and get out of your own head. Do you believe that Christ is the Son of God, or do you not? If you do, do you really think that this election is all there is, and that a loss here is somehow static, and works to nothing in God\u2019s purpose?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Visit her site for the rest. <\/p>\n

When my wife and I were discerning whether I should chuck 26 years at a powerful and cash-rich Fortune 500 company<\/a> in favor of the relatively modest means and aspirations of church employment, she was all “Please, God, give us x.” There was a lot of hand-wringing about what sort of buyout I might receive, and for how long. I gently admonished her: “No. It’s thy<\/i> will be done.” God ain’t Santa Claus. And, in the end, I got a very generous package. <\/p>\n

And so I have taken to directing all my prayer not to get<\/i> something that I want or need, but to accept<\/i> what is given to me, whatever it might be. God’s purposes aren’t ours. His plans aren’t man’s. The stone that is rejected becomes the cornerstone, as this Sunday’s gospel reminds us. Even the unlikeliest of outcomes and most unwanted of problems can be, by the grace of God, transformed. <\/p>\n

Two thousand years ago, I think you would be hard-pressed to find a lot of Christ’s followers who thought things had turned out they way they’d hoped on Good Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, this really hit home. Over at The Anchoress, the venerable A herself has knocked one out of the park on the subject of prayer and fasting: I\u2019m thinking we\u2019re in the middle of a mystery, that this whole, odd, unpredictable and too-long election season has been run along one of those threads connecting things…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us","category-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen "thy will" may not be MY will - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/when-thy-will-may-not-be-my-will.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When "thy will" may not be MY will - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Well, this really hit home. Over at The Anchoress, the venerable A herself has knocked one out of the park on the subject of prayer and fasting: I\u2019m thinking we\u2019re in the middle of a mystery, that this whole, odd, unpredictable and too-long election season has been run along one of those threads connecting things…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/when-thy-will-may-not-be-my-will.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-10-02T17:56:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"When \"thy will\" may not be MY will - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/when-thy-will-may-not-be-my-will.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"When \"thy will\" may not be MY will - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"Well, this really hit home. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}