There is a saying that has traditionally been attributed to
Ignatius, “Pray as though everything depended on God, and work as though everything depends on you.” But apparently, there is nothing in his writings that supports that idea. However, there is a saying in his writings that could have given rise to it, but its just the opposite. It says, “Pray as if everything depended on you, and work as though everything depends on God.”
When you think about it, the latter saying is the better one. It calls us to prayer precisely because what we do matters, and whatever we do we want it to be what God wants us to do. So, we need to spend time in prayer, giving God the opportunity to form our will to his. And if we work as though everything depends on God, then if he wants to stop something we’re involved in then we don’t have to agonise over it and be distraught – primarily because it would affect our ego and pride.
I think about these things in relation to the Mall project (a local mission opportunity that showed promise for church and community engagement, that had the potential to be a proper 'fresh expression' of church). We have prayed and worked hard for it, but if we don’t get the funding for it then it can’t happen as we had envisaged it, and I’ll take it that God doesn’t want it to go ahead that way. That’s fine, I wouldn’t be heartbroken, embarrassed, or dismayed.
It connects with the idea of ‘indifference’, or as I would like to call it, ‘holy indifference’. That’s about freely and completely letting something go when its plain that it must be let go. It’s also about sitting light to things in life so that the freedom to love is not constrained by the love of things, be they possessions, work, projects, etc.
