Have Thine Own Way, Lord

When symptoms began again, horrific “déjà vu” set in. As pain and disabling weakness collided with my regular rhythms of loving God and others, flashbacks of the 1990s held PTSD. 

How could this be happening again?

I was physically healed in 1999, with the miraculous intervention of the all-powerful God and my always-good, loving Father. Media reported His story as “Answered Prayers,” and thousands of patients finally experienced diagnosis and healing through their subsequent brain surgeries, after Dateline NBC’s broadcast of what God did.

In 2021, my life again swirled into medical tests and appointments, with my increasing inability to count on my body. Planned events became flexible frameworks.

Last year, I shared about God’s amazing provision and care in the “messy middle” as He brought a new doctor’s treatment of some of the symptoms. It helped some symptoms but also worsened others, with progressive disability. 

Power, all power, surely is thine!
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine!

(“Have Thine Own Way,” Pollard, A. A., 1906)

Once again, countless prayers for my physical healing seemed to be answered “no.”

Spiritual warfare in “unanswered prayers”

War had begun in suffering’s temptations. I battled the enemy’s lies with God’s Word, sharing books I’d started to write in healthier days, resources God has graciously used to carry me in my darkest battles.

The greatest lie for me?

God isn’t answering “yes,” so there’s something wrong with my faith or prayers.

How I’ve wrestled in emotional, physical, and spiritual agony from this lie of our accuser! 

Day by day and with each passing moment, He reminded me who He is and who I am, as His chosen, beloved, redeemed, saved child and heir in Christ. Every day, through the Holy Spirit’s illumination of God’s Word into my deepest pain, He held me up by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Every morning, He’s empowered me to battle with the offensive sword of the Spirit, His true Word, reading, meditating, soaking, studying, and singing Scripture into emotional messes.

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
    his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
    and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
    and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint (Is. 40:28-31).

Have Thine own way as Thy will be done

The hard truth is? God sometimes answers prayers with “Wait, not yet” or “No, my beloved child.”

This has nothing to do with our own “works.”

He comforted me with confident hope and assurance of my perfect healing in His presence for all of eternity. My husband and I began much intentional living and loving, knowing our earthly tomorrows are not promised to anyone. 

My grip on physical healing softened in the hold of my beloved Savior, who teaches us to pray to our Abba Father, “Thy will be done.” I knew that His will for my life, at this time in my life, was not physical healing…otherwise, He would have answered “yes” to many requests from me and others.

Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Thou art the potter; I am the clay.

Mold me and make me after thy will,
while I am waiting, yielded and still.

Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good (1 Pet. 4:19 ESV).

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him (1 Jn. 5:14-15 ESV, emphasis added).

Humbled in the arms of Jesus

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you (1 Pet. 5:6-7 ESV).

The Lord cared for me so tenderly, in continual “casting.” “Do not fear, for I am with you,” echoed through every song He lovingly provided. Cleansing peace came when He turned my every self-focused sinful thought about His “no” answers, back to the cross, where He gave me freed rest and joy-filled release.

Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
as in thy presence humbly I bow.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom. 5:1-5 ESV).

Have Thine Own Way, Lord, in Your answers

Somehow, in God’s wondrous providence, I recently received a phone call from a famous neurosurgeon who had seen my MRI scans and bumped me to the top of his schedule.

What?!

Beloved in Christ, meeting with this doctor came out of the blue. It came at a time when my husband and I could process our emotions from his words. God could be answering prayers for physical healing….with “yes,” if it’s His will and timing.

He explained that I’ve been experiencing continual microconcussions with every heartbeat, due to my cerebellum sagging out of my skull with furthered brainstem herniation and damage. With a newer surgical technique, surgery might help me. Or not. We simply don’t know, from mere human understanding.

Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Hold o’er my being absolute sway!
Fill with thy Spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me!

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18 ESV).

Material adapted from Singing the Gospel to Job: Finding Hope in Suffering, Lauri A. Hogle, © 2022

Singing Christ’s Hope as prayer

Will you join me as we make many needed decisions about this potentially life-changing surgery? I’m creating playlists to help carry us both through every “no,” “wait,” or “yes” answer as we “behold the glory” of Jesus Christ in song. These songs sing back to our Lord of His beauty, love, goodness, power, and hope in the glorious gospel.

For what has been His greatest answered prayer of “yes” as we pray for physical healing?

A deepened “being transformed” intimacy with Jesus in each sorrow and loss. A fervent passion to live only as He desires, glorifying Him and enjoying Him, now and forever. No matter what He chooses to do, as answered prayers. That is all, all, all God’s magnificent doing, as we behold His glory into the suffering.

These playlist gifts (and all the resources of Singing Christ’s Hope) are His spiritual warfare gifts to me, and I want to share them with as many suffering sisters in Christ as He desires. If any of this might bless you or a loved one who is also suffering, see below.