Fix It!

“Please help [so and so] get over her cold.”

“Please help the situation with [so and so] for them to have fun travels.”

“Please give [so and so] courage and comfort this time of year as she grieves the loss of her husband.”

“Please help [so and so] not be anxious.”

“Lord, take my pain away so I can sleep.”

That sums up my top prayers from yesterday. And the prayers I would pray again today. Except for these verses in John 12: “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” John 12:27-28

These were some of the verses I listened to this morning. They stopped me in my tracks. My primary focus is comfort—for me, for others. Christ’s main concern—the main focus of his prayer—is glorifying the Father.

Sure, we’re not in the same situation. Christ is facing imminent, excruciating death. We only face discomfort, disappointment. But our circumstances are a type of death—death to what we want, to our plans, to all that our flesh screams it must have.

Maybe we should “pour out our heart before Him” (Psalm 62: 8), asking Him to use the uncomfortable situation to refine us and bring glory to Himself. Perhaps instead of asking God to simply “fix it,” we should ask Him to use the situation to “fix us.”

How would a change in perspective affect the way I pray?