Have you heard the saying, “Be careful what you pray for, you might get it”? That came to mind as I read our collect for today where we ask God to “Put away from us . . . all hurtful things, and give us those things which are profitable for us.” On the surface the prayer sounds rather like “motherhood and apple pie” until we realize that God’s view of what’s hurtful and what’s profitable for us might not coincide with our desires and aspirations. We might think things like success, wealth, fame, honor would be profitable for us, while God might know such things would be our undoing. God may recognize that it is failure and humiliation, things we would consider hurtful in the extreme, that will open our eyes and heart to our need for the presence of the Holy One in our lives. In fact, oftentimes when we look back on what we thought at the time were the most abysmal situations in the world, we discover that those painful experiences have brought untold blessings into our lives and have been far more profitable for us than we could ever have imagined.

Once we are able to accept that God can use everything that comes our way in this life to our benefit, regardless of whether it feels hurtful of profitable while it is happening, we are well on our way to spiritual maturity, following in the path of Christ Jesus. Then we can join Fr. Al Durrance, Order of St. Luke, in his prayer of surrender: “Thy will be done, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else,” trusting in the steadfast love and mercy of God’s will for us.