Thy Will Be Done
“If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find Him in the chalice.” - St. John Chrysostom
I was walking through an inner city park one morning and saw a man hanging his clothes on the bushes to dry in the sunshine. He was a tall man, shirtless, and seemed to be busy about his morning organizing his belongings on a park bench. As I was walking his way, he asked me,
“What is that on your wrist?”
“It’s a prayer rope” I replied.
“What does it do?”
“It does not do anything,” I responded with a smile, “but I use it to say my prayers. As I finish my prayer, I’ll move onto the next knot and continue praying.”
“Oh, like prayer beads! Are you Catholic?”
“No, I’m not Catholic. I’m an Orthodox Christian” I replied.
“Greek Orthodox?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
I took my eyes off him for a moment to see two other people around him on nearby park benches and when I returned my gaze to the man, to my surprise he now had a violin with a bow and was making music. It was a simple tune, but he was playing notes cleanly and the horsehairs on the bow had a good tension to them as if he knew he what he was doing. I asked him,
“Do you know how to play the violin?”
“I’m learning, but I know how to play the drums better. Give me a couple months and I’ll be good at the violin.”
“Are you watching YouTube videos to learn how?”
“No,” he replied, “I’m learning by ear because I can’t read music. Once I learn the notes, I’ll start watching YouTube videos.”
I watched him for a moment as he stood playing music during the mid-morning. The song was freely available to anyone who wanted to listen in the open park. Then he asked me for my name and I asked him for his, we shook hands, exchanged kind greetings, we spoke of Jesus, and I asked him,
“Do you go to church anywhere?”
He looked up above and said,
“I’m always in church.”
I followed his drift and said,
“Because you are always in God’s presence.”
“That’s right,” he responded with a nod as his chin now rested on the violin and the music resumed.
Not entirely sure why I wanted to ask him this next thing, but I simply did and was completely unprepared for what was to happen next. So I asked him,
“Do you know the Jesus prayer?”
He lowered the violin and looked at me kindly, but directly, and said,
“Do I know my prayer?”
Surely he must have not heard me properly. So I repeated my question to him,
“Do you know the Jesus prayer?”
He continued to look at me without breaking his gaze and said,
“Do I know my prayer?”
I was taken aback by this question and the sentence structure. Why would he ask me if he himself knew his own prayer? But I quickly understood where this was going, so I asked him,
“What is your prayer?”
He looked up to the heavens above and this time he was not speaking to me, but to God,
“Thy will be done. Not my will, but Thy will”.
Here was a man, presumably without home, employment, financial support, health insurance, family or friend connections looking up to heaven and saying to God, “Thy will be done.” It was a total abandonment to God’s will which the world would regard as foolishness because of his lowly societal status, but here he was teaching me to seek God’s will over my own will no matter what. His gaze came back to earth and he looked at me and asked,
“What is your prayer?”
There it was again. He was personalizing the question and not asking to know what the Jesus prayer was, or the Lord’s prayer, or any other prayer. He didn’t want to know what words are recited. He wanted to know what my prayer was just as he wanted me to know what his prayer was. What is the prayer that I say from the outpouring of my heart? I responded,
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."
Silence hung in the humid air as we both contemplated on the words. I broke the silence with,
“The Lord knows I have made many mistakes in life and I am in great need of His mercy.”
“We all are,” he replied and concluded his conversation with me by saying genuinely, “thank you.”
I responded with enthusiasm,
“Thank you!”
I walked away pondering the encounter, the words of my prayer, the words of his prayer, the presence of God, and the surrender to God’s will. I prayed aloud saying,
“Glory to God! Thy will be done.”