Yea more, with His own hand He seemed intent to aggravate my woe, crossed all the fair designs I schemed, humbled my heart, and laid me low. "Lord, why is this?" I, trembling, cried; "Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?" "Tis in this way," the Lord replied, "I answer prayer for grace and faith.” "These inward trials I employ from self and pride to set thee free, and break thy schemes of earthly joy that thou may’st find thy all in me."
John Newton’s old hymn ‘I Asked the Lord that I Might Grow’ (his other title was ‘Prayer Answered by Crosses’) tells the story of his growth as a Christian. He comes to the Lord seeking to grow in grace and faith, confident that God’s answer would be to simply grant the request in some miraculous way.
Instead, the song explains that the Lord continued to block every well-laid plan. Everything seemed to go wrong, and Newton found himself humbled to the dust, broken and helpless.
God’s answer seemed to always be ‘No’.
In his anguish, Newton cries out to God and asks why all his best dreams were broken.
In a profound reply, the Lord explains that His purpose is to break Newton’s pride. If those prayers for grace and faith were simply answered arbitrarily, Newton would have been tempted to take credit for his spiritual achievements. His pride would have quickly inflated.
But when he had been crushed, and found no where else to turn but to Christ, Newton found true humility. He no longer could rely on himself or on his prayers, and was left to rely on Christ alone. This, and only this, is the path to true humility.
The Apostle Paul understood this in the exact same way. He told the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 12:1-10 that he pleaded with God to remove the thorn in his flesh. God’s answer was to say no in order that Paul would learn to rely on God’s grace.
God loves His children. When He says no to us, it isn’t to hurt us and destroy us, but to break us, and help us to truly grow in grace and faith. We cannot understand the power of grace until we are left with nothing else to rely on. And yet, as both Paul and John Newton discovered, this was the best place for them both!
