One winter evening, I felt a pain in my stomach. As the night progressed, the pain increased; then I started to feel pain in my arm, and one side of my face began to go numb. I had begun praying when I first felt the stomach pain, but these other concerns made me wonder what was going on. I started to mentally list things I’d heard of that this could be, but I quickly realized that this was more harmful than helpful. I needed to pray. So, as I often do when I’m not sure where to begin, I started praying the Lord’s Prayer (see Matthew 6:9-13).

When I came to the words “Thy will be done,” I realized this was a wonderful affirmation, and it became to me a line to hold. If God’s will is done, then there is no other influence or message I need to look to in order to see what is happening. In the Bible, we have this beautiful declaration that the divine will is entirely good: “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). And the psalmists, prophets, and Christ Jesus consistently describe God as good. 

This declaration of God’s will being done was comforting because it was an assurance that only good could be happening as the natural activity of our all-good God. Because God’s will is done, my bodily state must actually be included in—and protected by—that will. And since what the physical senses were reporting about my health and well-being denied these spiritual facts, their report had to be inaccurate. I resolved to not let material sensation inform my prayers, but to start from the perspective that God’s all-good will is, in fact, already done.