In stark contrast to the craving for dominance and the pursuit of personal power in this age of rugged individualism, Jesus’ model prayer calls us to humble subservience before the Almighty.   Before we bring our petitions to him, we are to first acknowledge the right order of things, to recognize his wisdom and power, and to yield our wills to his.

We must take care to recoil from the tendency to reduce God to our servant, avoiding the pagan view that he can be controlled or manipulated by our incantations and prayers.  Jesus teaches us to pray “Your kingdom come.”

We are eager to go our own way, to seek our own paths.

So often in our prayers we leap immediately into the list of our needs.  Our conversation with God turns out to be primarily a great detailing of our wishes and worries; a catalog of fears and a chronicle of our insistent desires.  Of course, God wishes for us to bring our petitions to him.  We are called to cast our cares on him and to rest in the certitude of his power and protection.  (1 Peter 5:7).  He specifically seeks to set us free from anxiety and to secure his peace in our hearts as we make our requests known to him.  (Philippians 4:6).  Our error is not in bringing our desires before him, but in elevating the expression of our wants and needs to be the main purpose of prayer.

Before we begin to call on God to be of service to us, we must first place ourselves into obedient service to him.  Before we ask him to take care of our kingdoms, we must first seek his kingdom.  Before we pronounce our will, we must make it subservient to his.  Prayer is not so much an opportunity to tell God what we want or need (He certainly knows before we ask), as it is an opportunity to move into a deeper and more intimate relationship with him.  That intimacy is found in our conformity to his will, in our growing Christ-like obedience and in the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit as he bears fruit in our lives.  The main purpose of prayer is to draw us to God and establish us close to his heart.  We find intimacy with him when we are seeking first his kingdom.  We find intimacy when our most heartfelt desire is for his will to be done.

Often, even when we pray “your will be done”, we have no real sense of bringing ourselves into harmony and conformity with his actual will.  We pray his will be done almost with a sense of resignation.  Our feeling is that God’s will is fundamentally mysterious, unknowable and obscure.  Good people find themselves anxious and troubled with their inability to know God’s will for their lives.  “I am eager to do God’s will,” they cry, “if only he would tell me what it is.”  We long for the kind of clarity of purpose and direction that an Abraham or Paul must have had.  When Jesus prays, “Not my will, but yours” in the Garden of Gethsemane, he has before him a very tangible choice.  God’s will, the “cup” of suffering from which he will drink, is as real as it gets.  But for most of us, most of the time, the course of obedience is far less dramatic, less sharply defined, than we see or imagine in the lives of the Bible.  Why does Jesus teach us to pray for his will to be done if that will is to be hidden from us?

First, as we approach the sovereign God, as we draw near to him in prayer, we need to desire that his will be done even if we neither know nor understand it.  It is sufficient to comprehend that his will and his way are perfect.  To pray for his will to be done even when that will is unknown constitutes both an act of faith and statement of unreserved and unqualified commitment.  Job expresses this kind of absolute confidence when he says, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him…”(Job 13:15).  If even the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men (1 Corinthians 1:25) and if it is God’s pleasure to give us the kingdom (Luke 12:32), then it is reasonable to pray for his will to be done.  This is sufficient: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  (Jeremiah 29:11)  If God plans good for me, then his will be done – whatever that will might be.

However, God’s will is not nearly as hidden as we sometimes suppose it to be.  God takes great care in his word to reveal his will for us.  We may be certain that God wills everyone to come to repentance, that none would perish (2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:4).  It is his will, therefore, that we should be obedient to the commission to make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20).

Further, it is his will that we be sanctified, that is, holy and set apart for him (1 Thessalonians 4:3).  Such sanctification is described in the scripture’s numerous admonitions to holy living, by the call to a sacrificed life in Romans 12:1-2, and by the command, “…whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus…”  (Colossians 3:17).  It is God’s will that we be single-minded in our devotion to him.

It is God’s will that we do good.  We are not saved by our good works, but, having saved us by his grace, God now wills that we do good.  God is pleased when we exhibit the family trait of self-sacrifice to “do good and share with others.”  (Hebrews 13:16)  In this way we silence the ignorant talk of foolish men (1 Peter 2:15) and fulfill the eternal plan of God, “for we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”  (Ephesians 2:10).  God may leave the specific choice of a particular good work to you, but your need to make the choice and do the good is clearly his will.

It is God’s will that we possess a certain attitude and outlook on life.  God is pleased when we live “peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness”  (1 Timothy 2:24) and when we “continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise”  (Hebrews 13:15).  God knows we experience trials and trouble in this world, but his will for us is that we should “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).  “Always,” “continually,” and “in all circumstances” God’s will is for you to feel and understand and know his presence, purpose and power.

Often we wish that God would give some clear answer to a specific question or problem we pose to him.  Sometimes we are frustrated by his apparent silence.  Most often, however, his will is evident if only we listen.  Let these be the parameters of your decision:

¨      Does it serve to spread the Good News, to build and strengthen his kingdom?

¨      Can it be done in the name of Jesus?  Is it an act of worship and devotion to him?

¨      Does it accomplish a good work?  Are others helped, encouraged or strengthened?

¨      Does it bring me godly joy, make me give thanks and draw me closer to God?

If your answer is yes to each question, and yet you still find yourself confronted by choices equally good, then perhaps God’s will is that you exercise that wonderful chooser/decider he created and placed in your head.  God did not create you as a robot.  You are in his image and he delights in your uniqueness and creative choices.  This too is his will being done.

Our Father

in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead in not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Matthew  6:9-13

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen