The purveyors of "positive thinking" like to tell us that if we want something badly enough we can get it, no matter what it is. All we need is the desire, the hunger, the commitment, and if we have these three things, we can accomplish whatever we want. If we fail to achieve our goal, it is only because we didn’t want it badly enough.

Positive thinking has much to recommend it, but it has its limitations. One such limitation is this: we cannot always have what we want "just because we want it." All the girls in the Miss America contest want to be Miss America but only one gets to wear the crown. The crown becomes hers not because she wanted it more than anybody else there, but because somebody gave it to her; and who in the world knows (really) how they decide which girl to give it to? They never pick the ones I like. All the young men who try to be professional athletes want to make the team, but most of them get cut because of their size, their ability or lack of it, and their injuries. All the men running for President of the United States want to be President but they get the Office, not because of their great desire for it, but rather because a majority of the voters give it to them. Just wanting to do something, to be something, to have something, is not enough to make it happen. What can happen for us is limited by the weaknesses in ourselves and in the world around us.

It is idolatry to believe that we can "do anything we want to do." We are not almighty. We are limited in power. Only God is almighty. Only God has limitless power. Only God can do whatever he wants to do. The scriptures tell us that in God’s hand are power and might (1 Chronicles 29:12). Only with God are all things possible (Matthew 19:26).

In his Gospel Saint John tells us about a man who wanted with all his heart to be healthy but couldn’t make it happen. In Jerusalem there was a pool called Bethesda. This pool was a place of healing. Every once in a while God sent an angel down into the pool to shake up the water. Whoever stepped into the pool first after the water moved was healed of whatever disease he had. A multitude of people were there, John tells us, blind, lame, paralyzed, all waiting for healing. One man had been there 38 years. Jesus asked him, "Do you want to be healed?" Of course he did, but he couldn’t do it because of his weakness. He told the Lord, "There is no one to help me get into the water and somebody else always gets there before me" (John 5). The man wanted to be healed but merely desiring it was not enough to make it happen. So Jesus healed him. Like God, Jesus has the power to do whatever he wants to do because he is God.

There’s a big difference between what we can do and what God can do. Peter learned this lesson the hard way. Peter and the rest of the disciples were in a boat out on Lake Galilee. There was a storm and they were in trouble. Jesus was not with them but he saw their plight and came to them, walking on the water. When the disciples first saw him, they were scared out of their minds, thinking he was a ghost. The Lord assured them he was not. Peter asked to walk on the water with him. He wanted to walk on the water. He made it a few steps and then began to sink. His desire was not enough to keep him up. Jesus could do it because he is God and can do anything. Peter, the man, was limited by his weakness (Matthew 14:29).

We are limited not only by our own weakness but also by weakness in the world around us and our desire cannot change that. In the book of 1 Kings we read about a widow and her son who were powerless to do anything about their fate. They had run out of food. Everybody had run out of food. There was a famine in the land and people were dropping like flies. The widow had enough left for one meal and after she and her son ate that, they were going to lie down and die. She did not want to die; she wanted to live. She wanted to eat and to feed her son. But she couldn’t make it happen. There just wasn’t any food anywhere and all the wanting in the world would not change that. God fed her. For days and days and days he always gave her just enough to feed herself, her son and one guest, a prophet whom God sent to her (1 Kings 17). We cannot do whatever we want "just because we want it." God can! "Our God does whatever he pleases," David confessed (Psalm 115:3).

In our Gospel lesson we have a beautiful testimony to the almighty power of Jesus, our Savior, power only God has. A leper came to Jesus for healing. He wanted to be free from that ugly disease but he couldn’t do anything about it. Back then nobody could do anything about it. Remember the reaction of Israel’s king in our Old Testament lesson? The King of Syria sent a man to him with instructions to heal him of his leprosy. Israel’s King was overwhelmed by the request. He tore his robes and asked, "Am I God, that I can heal this man?" Nobody could do anything about leprosy. The poor leper came to Jesus and, kneeling in front of the Lord, he begged for healing, saying, "If you want to, you can make me clean." The poor leper knew that Jesus had almighty power. The Lord was moved with pity and, stretching out his hand, he touched the leper and said, "I want to make you well; be clean!" And immediately he was healed. Jesus is the almighty God and he has almighty power.

"All power has been given unto me in heaven and on earth," Jesus said (Matthew 28:18). "He was declared to be the Son of God with power by his Resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4). God has given him power over all flesh, power to give eternal life to all who believe in him (John 17:2).

Confessing the almighty power of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ is not really hard to do. There is much evidence to support our confession. What is hard, however, is to understand why God doesn’t use his power the way we want him to, to do the things we want him to do. If God has all power, then why do things that we consider evil still happen? Even the children are able to grasp this difficulty because they ask, "If God can do anything, why doesn’t he make sin go away?" Things happen that make no sense to us at all and we sign in powerlessness, "Why doesn’t God do something?"

There are no easy answers to such questions. We begin to understand why God does things the way he does when we learn what it is that God truly wants for us. What he wants for us is something far greater than what we typically want for ourselves. We want to be spoiled; we want to have what we want even if it might hurt us. God wants us to be like him and with him.

The Bible tells us what God wants for us. God wants us to be his children (John 1:13). He wants to deliver us from this present evil age (Galatians 1:4). He wants us to be holy (1 Thessalonians 4:3). He wants us to do right, even if we get hurt because of it (1 Peter 2:15 and 3:17). He wants us to hope in Christ, to believe in our Savior and trust him alone and nothing (or no one) else (Ephesians 1:11). He wants us to live with him forever (John 14:2).

Saint Paul knew there is a great difference between what we want and what God wants. Three times Paul pleaded with God about the same thing, asking to be healed of his "thorn in the flesh." Three times he was turned down. Still, the apostle confessed, "The will of God is good and perfect and acceptable" (Romans 12:2). Things happen and God appears to do nothing about it because he doesn’t do what we want him to do. God does do something; he does what he wants, what he knows will make his greatest wish for us happen: our salvation.

Because we are God’s children who know he loves us and has made us his own, we accept what he wants for us even though it hurts sometimes. We pray in our prayers, "thy will be done," just as our Lord Jesus himself prayed it. Jesus of Nazareth, the man, was powerless in his weakness to do anything but to place himself in his Father’s care. He didn’t want to die but he knew he had to, so he prayed, "Not my will but thine be done." Not what I want, Father, but what you want. What God wanted is exactly what happened. Jesus died, and because of it we are saved. Jesus came back to life again and because of it we have a home in heaven. By doing it God’s way, accepting what God wanted, Jesus was glorified and now his name is greater than any other name, a name at which every knee will bow in heaven, on earth and under the earth. What God wanted for Jesus was best for him and also for us. What God wants for us is best for us also, even when we can’t see it. To do what is best for us is that for which God uses his almighty power.

Through Jesus he brings his power into our lives. Amen