Genesis 17:18

And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!

This is not just Abraham speaking as the head of a covenant line. This is a father talking about his son. Ishmael was not a theory to Abraham. He was flesh and blood. He was a boy Abraham loved. So when Abraham cries out, “O that Ishmael might live before thee,” you can hear the ache in it. Lord, let this be the one. Let this work. Let the thing that came out of my failure somehow become the thing You bless.

That is a very honest prayer.

Abraham had gotten ahead of the Lord. Ishmael was born out of impatience, out of human effort, out of trying to help God fulfill what only God could fulfill. And now Abraham is basically saying, “Lord, I know this was not Your way. I know I got ahead of You. I know I made a mess. But would You bless it anyway?”

I understand that. Maybe you do too.

How many times have we done the same thing? We did not wait. We did not really seek the Lord. We did not sit still long enough to hear from Him. We just moved. We jumped into the relationship. We took the opportunity. We forced the situation. We convinced ourselves our motives were pure, our intentions were good, and because of that, we assumed the Lord would surely approve. Then when the whole thing started unraveling, we prayed, “Lord, please bless this.”

That is so often how we pray.

I used to think prayer was me handing God a list of instructions. Bless this. Fix that. Open this door. Shut that one. Do it this way. Do it now. I thought prayer was my chance to tell God what needed to happen, as though heaven was waiting on my direction. The more serious I was, the more convinced I became that God ought to get on board with my plan.

But I have learned something through the years. I do not have a clue what God ought to do.

And that has actually been one of the sweetest lessons of all.

Because prayer is not giving God orders. Prayer is reporting for duty. Prayer is not me saying, “Lord, bless my mess.” Prayer is me saying, “Lord, have Your way.” It is not clinging to the Ishmael I produced and insisting God make it His plan. It is bowing low enough to say, “If this is not Your best, then I do not want it, no matter how attached I am to it.”

That is where peace starts to come in.

Because the burden is lifted when I stop trying to manage outcomes that were never mine to control in the first place. The strain begins to ease when I stop trying to make God sign off on my agenda. There is rest in leaving the choice with Him. There is freedom in saying, “Lord, You know what I cannot see. You know what belongs in my life and what does not. You know what is born of the flesh and what is born of promise. So I am going to trust You.”

Sometimes the Lord will not bless my Ishmael because He loves me too much to let me settle for less than His promise.

That stings for a moment. But it saves me in the end.

So maybe the prayer today is not, “Lord, make this work.” Maybe it is, “Lord, if this is just my own striving, let it fall away. But if it is You, establish it in Your time and in Your way.” That is a much safer prayer. That is a much better place to live.

Saints, God gives His best to those who leave the choice with Him.