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AS THOU WILT

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 27, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 35.

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“AS THOU WILT.”

By Nellie M. Haskell

MRS. NELLIE M. HASKELL, (Hallowell, Me.)
PRAYERS born of our murmurings, or of our natural inclinations and desires, are always dangerous. When, therefore, we are in a discontented mood, or in a state of perplexity and doubt, we should take careful thought as to what we ask of God, lest He give it to us, and thereby punish us. Rachel cried for children, yet she had no joy in them, and called her latest born Ben-oni, “the son of my sorrow.”
Infinite Wisdom often withholds the thing we cry for, and spares us the sorrow its bestowal would surely bring. What lessons of trust we need to learn right here! We should seek to grasp the fact that He who sees the end from the beginning knows how to mold the circumstances of our lives, how to fashion their surroundings for our best interests both for time and for eternity. Let us ever remember God knows best; and when a petition which we offer in simple faith seems denied, let us take even the denial for a favor; for surely He who spared not His own Son, but freely delivered Him up to die for us all, will, in every respect, consult our highest good. Truly has the poet said,—
“What most you wish and long for Might only bring you pain, You cannot see the future God’s purpose to explain. So trust, faint heart, thy Master, He doeth all things well; He loveth more than heart can guess, And more than tongue can tell.”
We should never forget the “As thou wilt,” when we offer our petitions at the throne of heavenly grace. When our will is submerged in the will of God, so that His will is our will, then we can say with John, “And this is the confidence that we have in Him [or concerning Him, as the margin gives it], that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us: and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.” Oh, the blessedness of asking according to His will, and of knowing that He doeth all things well, bestowing or withholding for the best good of His children! Surely we who have learned to say “Our Father” from the lips of Jesus, may also learn from His example to append to all our petitions, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”