What I Add to All My Prayers

I have developed the habit of adding a phrase at the end of all my prayers. It started a while ago and quickly became very natural to me. This applies to any prayer of petition, any prayer for divine help or guidance.

 

At the end of my prayer, my request, I always add, “And not my will, but thine, be done.”

There are two reasons for my doing this.

If my prayer is not answered in the way I hope, I will not be disappointed. I will be better able to accept the outcome. I’ll be able to reason with my demanding human self that my request might not have been the best choice for me, for my life’s journey. It sort of leaves the outcome rather open-ended. I’ve said my prayer – I’ve stated my personal hopes for the outcome – but I leave room for adjustment. I can deal with that.

And if my prayer works out the way I hope, I am delighted and pleased and ever so happy.

I am also very happy to have lived to be 75 and to still have my wits about me (or at least I think I still have my wits). You see, I can easily look behind me, I can see all those times when something I prayed for was denied. Sometimes I really thought it was the worst thing in the world that could have happened. And yet, in retrospect, I can also see how something far better came about because my own selfish, stubborn version of what I thought I needed was in fact not best for me.

So I pray, and I add my little “adjustment” clause, and I leave it up to him.

Father, you have always answered my prayers in the best possible way for this rather stubborn child of yours. I am so grateful that you have also allowed me to look back and see all the times your answer was far better than the solution I prayed for. Help me, please, to continue to allow you to pick the answers to my prayers – I have never, in the long run, been disappointed in the results.