Lord, your will is my will!

I know a woman, let's just call her Anna-Maria, who, after a profound conversion experience, placed all of her abilities and will at God's disposal. Her lifes motto is now: Lord, your will is my will! She has learnt to trust the impulses of the Holy Spirit and God can thus lead her into situations in which He needs her, but into which she would never enter of her own accord. Her experience is that the inspirations that come from God are very different from her own thoughts and desires. This gives her great inner security regarding her actions.

However, following these inspirations often requires overcoming an inner struggle with God. In the end she always endeavours to comply with God's will and looking back, she can always recognise what God has used her for.

She recently told me about many such experiences incuding the following:

She was on her way home by car when she had a very clear impulse to go to a certain organic food shop. She hadn't originally intended to shop there at all, but the impulse was so far removed from her own desire that she sensed that she had to fulfil it. So she went to the health food shop in question and bought a little something.

As she was standing at the till, she overheard a man standing in front of her telling another person that his wife was in poor health.

Suddenly Anna-Maria had a strong feeling that she should ask this man if she could pray for his wife. However, she quickly pushed this thought aside because it didn't seem at all appropriate in this rather public situation. But another impulse came: "Ask the man!" This completely unsettled her and she began to look for reasons why this would not be a good idea.  And for the third time, this impulse came in a calm, loving but firm way: "Ask the man!" Anna-Maria felt that she should obey this impulse.

In the meantime, the man had gone towards the exit and was now standing there talking to another man. Anna-Maria was unsure what to do and searched inwardly for a way to gain time. In silent prayer, she told God that she would quickly go to the nearby bakery. If the man was still standing there afterwards and was alone, yes, she would speak to him and ask him.

There were a lot of people in the bakery and it took a while for her to finish her shopping. She could see through the window that the two men were still talking to each other. Just as she left the bakery, the second man walked away. Suddenly she had the opportunity to speak to this man alone. So, with her heart pounding, she went back to the health food shop to approach this man, who was a complete stranger to her, and ask him if she could pray for his sick wife.

The man responded surprisingly positively and so they arranged a time for Anna-Maria to visit him and his wife.

During her visit, it turned out that his wife had leukaemia in its final stages, with extensive and, despite morphine, extremely painful open wounds. As it turned out, the marriage was also heavily burdened by a past debt. Through prayer, the emotional wounds began to heal and over the next few days this led to mutual forgiveness and deep reconciliation between the couple. A few days later, this woman was then baptised and after not too long she was able to die in peace and reconciliation.

Let's look at this situation from God's perspective:

God wants to save all people. Hence, timely reconciliation and forgiveness of guilt before death, in the sense of the "Our Father", seems to be of very central importance.

God does not impose his will on us, regardless of the circumstances, because he has given us our free will.  After all, this has been the experience of mankind since time immemorial. He was therefore unable to persuade this woman to reconcile on his own initiative; it would have been a manipulation of her freedom. However, through Anna-Maria's "diversions", he was able to achieve reconciliation for the woman through prayer.

Anna-Maria was not only prepared to be led by God in her everyday life, but she had also already experienced the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This enabled her to take steps that she would never have taken on her own, despite her fear and insecurity. She had completely trusted God's inspirations. In this way, God was able to enlist Anna-Maria’s help in achieving his aims, which always consist in the salvation of people.