Devotion: "If You Are Willing, You Can..."

"If You Are Willing, You Can..."

by Marsha

Mark 1:40 And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. (KJV)

I was reading this verse this week in another version of the Bible that went like this:

Mark 1:40 Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, "If You are willing, You can make me clean."

I was struck by the fact that the leper didn't beg for healing. He simply knelt down and expressed simple faith in the fact that he believed Jesus could do it if He was willing. How often do I beg for Jesus to do this or that for me, sometimes even demanding it?

You see, sometimes I think I know what is best for me. Of course, I am only thinking of the physical, but God is thinking of what is spiritually good for His children. What I want may not be spiritually good for me and so it isn't His will to give me what I want in that case. If He is willing, He can give me anything I want. But this would not be spiritually beneficial to me.

All God wants from us when we come to Him in prayer is simple faith acknowledging that He can do what we ask if He is willing. He wants us to leave the answer up to Him and what He deems best for us spiritually. He doesn't want us to come with closed fists holding tightly to our ideas of what we think He should do for us. He wants us to come with open hands, ready to release whatever our desires are to His will.