Lord, have your way
I know I can’t be the only one who has prayed the “not my will, but yours be done” prayer or the “Lord have your way” prayer. But can we be honest and say sometimes we say things because they sound good…not because we truly mean them. Like, how many times did we say we would drop a guy or a girl only to end up going back to them after a week or so? Or how many times did we say we would address someone about a situation, only for us to be hush mouth when they came around?
It seems as though, we can be all talk sometimes and sometimes it’s warranted. Our emotions get the best of us and we are liable to just say anything. But once our emotion level goes from a 20 to at least a 5, we realize we were just talking. We said what we said because we were frustrated, angry, or disappointed, and we’re not really “about that life.”
While we may be all talk sometimes, there’s one thing we should say with our chest and truly mean it and that is “Lord, have your way.”
Part of being friends with someone is honesty, so let’s be honest with ourselves and with each other. We’ve all prayed and asked the Lord to have his way only to find ourselves like Abram and Sarai who wanted the Lord to have his way, but did not in fact wait for the Lord to have his way.
Genesis 15:4-6 (NLT) tells us “Then the Lord said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!” And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.”
The Lord told Abram at the time that he would have an heir, that his descendants would be as many as the stars and Abram believed him. Verse 6 says, “And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.” But if Abram believed what the Lord said, why did he agree to sleep with Hagar in Genesis 16?
Genesis 16:1-3 (NLT) says “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not been able to bear children for him. But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed with Sarai’s proposal. So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife. (This happened ten years after Abram had settled in the land of Canaan.)”
Some Bible commentators estimate that from the time Abram received God’s promise to the time he slept with Hagar was about ten years.
Ten years is insane! You mean to tell me I may have to wait ten years to receive a promise? And even after all that time, Abram and Sarai still didn’t have the child God had promised.
But let’s be honest with ourselves, there have been several times when we find ourselves like Abram and Sara. We pray and tell the Lord we want Him to have His way, but after waiting and waiting we start to move with our way in mind and not the Lords. We’re okay with saying we want the Lord to have His way, but our actions say otherwise. That’s when we find ourselves asking, “Lord, have Your way,” while quietly making backup plans just in case He doesn’t move as quickly as we’d like. But we see from Abram and Sarai’ story and even from our own experiences what happens when we become impatient and start making those backup plans.
We start blaming other people when our backup plans don’t work out. We make mistakes, spend so much time trying to fix them, and end up in a never-ending cycle of creating problems we never had to create in the first place. In the end, we find ourselves living with consequences God never intended for us.
So how do what do we do? How do we keep ourselves from making backup plans while we’re waiting on God? I believe we should have faith like the three Hebrew boys—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
When they stood before the king in Daniel 3:12-18 (NLT), they believed God was able to deliver them from the fiery furnace. But what I love most is that their faith wasn’t dependent on God doing what they wanted Him to do. They said, “But even if He doesn’t…” They trusted God’s character more than they trusted the outcome.
That’s the kind of faith we need. A faith that says, “Lord, have Your way,” not only when His will matches our plans, but even when it doesn’t. A faith that refuses to create backup plans because it trusts that God’s way is still the best way.
So how do we develop that kind of faith? The story of Abram and Sarai and the story of the three Hebrew boys teaches us that
We should surrender our timeline. Abram and Sarai created their back up plan because they got tired of waiting. But it’s in the waiting that God is working our situations out and working in us. Our timeline puts a rush on things when God wants to take His time.
We must remember that God is faithful. The waiting caused Abram and Sarai to forget the promise that God gave them, but the three Hebrew boys were willing to wait on God to deliver them and knew that even if He didn’t deliver them, He was still in control. His plans were still going to come to past. Just because God is taking His time doesn’t mean He has changed His mind.
We have to mean what we pray. If we’re going to pray, “Lord, have Your way,” we have to be willing to accept whatever “His way” looks like. Otherwise, those words become nothing more than a nice-sounding prayer. Faith isn’t proven by what we say in prayer; it’s proven by how we respond while we wait.
So before you pray, “Lord, have Your way,” ask yourself this question: Do I really mean it?
Because “Lord, have Your way” isn’t just a prayer we pray when life is going the way we want. It’s a declaration of trust. It’s choosing to believe that God’s timing is better than ours, His plans are wiser than ours, and His ways are higher than ours—even when we don’t understand them.
Today, resist the urge to create a backup plan. Resist the temptation to take matters into your own hands. Instead, choose to trust the God who has never broken a promise.
Maybe that’s what “Lord, have Your way” really means.
It means laying down our timeline, surrendering our backup plans, and trusting that if God made the promise, He is faithful enough to fulfill it—in His way and in His time.
