The Circle Maker is about praying circles around your biggest dreams and fears; about praying about humanly unattainable things in order to push our faith further and to trust in God.
One thing that came up in the book and turned into a discussion with my mom was the idea of praying for things according to God's will. By that I mean a prayer such as, "Dear Lord, I'd really like this job. If it is Your will, let it be so!" Now, on the surface, this prayer sounds not all that selfish and pretty great. But there are a couple possible risks in there to be wary of.
Both of them are in the "If it is Your will, let it be so!" I have been praying some version of that for at least a decade. "Help me to follow Your will," or "Please show me Your will," or, like the example, "Please let this be Your will." Again, there is really nothing wrong with these, as written. We genuinely would like to know God's will so that it would be a heck of a lot easier to go about life. But really, all we are doing is asking God to do something for us. We are not being proactive about it. I'm not saying that we can presume to know God's will or that we can do things without God. I'm simply saying that we can make an educated guess about it and take some action so that we aren't just sitting around waiting for something to happen.
The main risk is that you use "Let it be Your will," or "Show me Your will," as a cop out. If the thing doesn't work out, or if the answer to your prayer is in the negative, then you can say, "Well I guess it wasn't in God's will!" Or if you still don't have a good grip on God's will, you can say, "Well I guess He hasn't shown it to me, yet! Sure wish he would!" His will is written all through the bible and, especially, the new testament. Love one another. There you go. Start there.
So, instead of praying, "Let it be Your will," I'm going to try and idea I got about this based on something in Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (the original book, not the musical!) I'm gonna try praying, "Okay God. I believe it is Your will for _____ to happen. To show you how much I believe it is Your, I am going to do everything in my power to make it happen. I will work as hard as I can to achieve it. If You help me, then it will surely come about. I will do my best to do Your will, always. But I will DEFINITELY fail since I am not perfect and so please help me be more disciplined about it. However, in regards to the prayer at hand, this is me letting you know that I am going full steam ahead here so if it's not in Your will, You'd better stop me."
For those interested, I have pasted the passage from Les Miserables that gave me the idea at the bottom of this blog.
-Chip
P.S. - Les Miserables, along with many other copyright-expired books, is free on Kindle (or other e-readers). The entire book is filled with examples of following God's will and being morally just. It's actually a great Christian read, in my humble opinion. It is quite long, though. And somewhat dense.
Edit: I have finished Les Miserables. While it is a great book with poetic writing, an incredible story line and tones of historical information, I will add that there were long sections where Victor Hugo basically went on rants about the structure of society, or historical attributes of barricades, or simply street layouts of France at that time. About halfway through the book I started skipping over these sections. I'm still a Jean Valjean fan, though.
In this passage, Jean Valjean is following what he believes to be God's will and doing all in his power to accomplish the task of traveling to a court in Arras, even though it means being condemned and sent to prison. The authorities there believe they have captured a Jean Valjean and the true Valjean is intent on saving that innocent man. He would rather suffer than to betray God. On the way to Arras, though, his cart broke.
It was evident that Providence was intervening. That it was it who had broken the wheel of the tilbury and who was stopping him on the road. He had not yielded to this sort of first summons; he had just made every possible effort to continue the journey; he had loyally and scrupulously exhausted all means; he had been deterred neither by the season, nor fatigue, nor by the expense; he had nothing with which to reproach himself. If he went no further, that was no fault of his. It did not concern him further. It was no longer his fault. It was not the act of his own conscience, but the act of Providence. He breathed again. He breathed freely and to the full extent of his lungs for the first time since Javert's visit. It seemed to him that the hand of iron which had held his heart in its grasp for the last twenty hours had just released him. It seemed to him that God was for him now, and was manifesting Himself. He said himself that he had done all he could, and that now he had nothing to do but retrace his steps quietly. If his conversation with the wheelwright had taken place in a chamber of the inn, it would have had no witnesses, no one would have heard him, things would have rested there, and it is probable that we should not have had to relate any of the occurrences which the reader is about to peruse; but this conversation had taken place in the street. Any colloquy in the street inevitably attracts a crowd. There are always people who ask nothing better than to become spectators. While he was questioning the wheelwright, some people who were passing back and forth halted around them. After listening for a few minutes, a young lad, to whom no one had paid any heed, detached himself from the group and ran off. At the moment when the traveller, after the inward deliberation which we have just described, resolved to retrace his steps, this child returned. He was accompanied by an old woman. "Monsieur," said the woman, "my boy tells me that you wish to hire a cabriolet." These simple words uttered by an old woman led by a child made the perspiration trickle down his limbs. He thought that he beheld the hand which had relaxed its grasp reappear in the darkness behind him, ready to seize him once more. He answered:— "Yes, my good woman; I am in search of a cabriolet which I can hire." And he hastened to add:— "But there is none in the place." "Certainly there is," said the old woman. "Where?" interpolated the wheelwright. "At my house," replied the old woman. He shuddered. The fatal hand had grasped him again. The old woman really had in her shed a sort of basket spring-cart. The wheelwright and the stable-man, in despair at the prospect of the traveller escaping their clutches, interfered. "It was a frightful old trap; it rests flat on the axle; it is an actual fact that the seats were suspended inside it by leather thongs; the rain came into it; the wheels were rusted and eaten with moisture; it would not go much further than the tilbury; a regular ramshackle old stage-wagon; the gentleman would make a great mistake if he trusted himself to it," etc., etc. All this was true; but this trap, this ramshackle old vehicle, this thing, whatever it was, ran on its two wheels and could go to Arras.
