Thy Will Be Done

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Thy Will Be Done.

Matthew 6

Did you ever listen to a song and then have the tune stick with you all day, playing over and over again in your mind? Que Sera, Sera, the old Doris Day song, is one such melody that clings to me. Like gum on my shoe, sometimes I just can’t get rid of it.

You’ve probably heard Que Sera, Sera before, but did you ever pay much attention to its lyrics? The song was written for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much and contains a strong dose of fatalism:

Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours to see
Que sera, sera

In the classic 1956 film that features the song, Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day star as a couple whose boy is kidnapped after they accidentally get caught up in an international conspiracy. Hitchcock skillfully interweaves Que Sera, Sera into the plot, suggesting that the chaos and danger that the couple face in attempting to rescue their son are unavoidable, no matter what they do.

To many people, that same fatalism comes to mind when they start talking about God’s will. Regardless of what they do, God has His own mind made up already, so whatever will be, will be. In fact, the familiar phrase in the Lord’s Prayer “thy will be done” is often seen as the Shakespearean equivalent to “que sera, sera.”

Just what does it mean to pray for God’s will to be done in your life? Does it mean throwing up your arms and resigning yourself to an uncertain fate? Or is there a deeper promise that you can hold onto when you pray for His will? In this chapter, you explore the major issues to think about when praying for God’s will, specific steps to take to know God's will, and reasons why it's vital to pray that the will of God be done.

However, before I begin, let me apologize if you find yourself humming Que Sera, Sera as you read through the rest of the chapter. I know I am!

A Battle of Wills

Throughout the Bible, you find examples of people obedient to God praying for the Lord’s will to be carried out. I think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were about to be put into a fiery furnace for refusing to bow down to the gods of King Nebuchadnezzar, when they said, in effect, “We pray for God to save us, but if not, may His will be done” (Dan. 3:17-18). Or I think of stubborn Jonah, who had to get eaten by a big fish before coming to the conclusion “thy will be done,” but in the end, he did. Perhaps the most famous example is found in the Gospel of Matthew when Jesus instructed his followers to pray: “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Praying for God’s will sounds well and good until you think about the possible downside: The result may mean that your will not be done. Now, that’s a bummer!

Yes, you and I often don’t see eye to eye with God and end up clashing with Him in a contest of wills: my will versus God’s will. In large part, this battle is caused by the fact that you and I think differently from God in four specific ways.

Here and now

While God looks at things in the light of eternity, the outlook of mere mortals like you and me is much more focused on the here and now. We may give occasional thought to what’s ahead, but the “future” is always within my or perhaps my children’s lifetime. God’s will is based on eternity, whereas my head starts to spin whenever I fast-forward to the time my kids will be old enough to drive, let alone to eternity.

Imagine yourself walking through a giant, life-size maze in search of the exit door. During the walk, you can see only the passageway directly in front of or behind you, and you have no real clue how your current position relates to the overall goal of getting out of the maze. Oh, on a hunch, you may make a run for what you think is the way out, but ultimately your understanding of the situation is only a guess, given your limited perspective.

Contrast that with God, who has a bird’s-eye view of the entire maze, seeing the beginning and the end points. Because of this fact, if you were to let God lead you through the puzzle, He would take you around twists and turns that you might think are superfluous, unnecessary, or even in the wrong direction. But, in actuality, they would be needed steps to reach the goal of the exit.

In the same way, your will and my will are based on a ground-level, here-and-now perspective that doesn’t take into account the full scope of reality. God’s will does.

“Up periscope”

Growing up, I always wanted to be a submarine captain, the one who says, “Up periscope!” and gets the first look through the looking glass to see what’s on the surface of the water around the vessel. I thought a periscope was cool because it allowed a captain to see things on the surface while the submarine remained underwater.

You and I view life in much the same way: a snapshot of reality. Those pictures of what’s in front of you help form your interests and passions as well as influence what you’re concerned enough to pray for. If you’re like me, your prayers are usually about you and your family, friends and acquaintances, people at your place of worship, and the occasional government leader. But when you go to God with this narrow perspective, such prayers may not factor in other people who would be affected if God answered your prayer the way that you want Him to.

But once again, God sees the big picture. He has the panoramic, wide-angle lens. He knows all the ripple effects of your prayer requests and how a specific answer to your prayer could adversely affect someone you don’t know.

The Lord refuses to look at your request in a vacuum like you or I probably would prefer. Instead, He looks at each request based on all of reality and responds accordingly.

The finish line

Young and old alike, people are attracted to finish lines. Something deeply rooted in men and women propels them to meet goals at all costs, striving to break the tape at the end of a race. These finish lines characterize all aspects of life, not just athletic events: landing a new job, buying a new house, finding the right mate, making enough money to retire, and so on. More often than not, much of the time you and I spend on this earth is in the hot pursuit of some goal.

Mortals can easily become consumed, even obsessed, by finish lines. Yet, God doesn’t give the same importance to end goals like you or I do. He is concerned with your aspirations and helps you achieve them, but He is far more interested in the growth that occurs in your life in pursuit of these ends compared to the actual goals themselves. His will reflects that fact.

It’s all about me

The first three ways in which you and I think differently from God are not necessarily bad in and of themselves. More than anything, they’re simply part of being human. However, the final reason you think differently from God is one that you can be blamed for: sin.

According to the Scriptures, except for Jesus, every person who has walked, is walking, or will walk the earth has sinned. This sin that you have in your life invariably leads to selfishness. And being selfish means that you’d rather have what you want, when you want it, rather than what’s part of God’s plan and timing. This selfishness, when left unchecked, results in your prayers being tainted by self-interest and self-concern rather than being focused on the will of God or the needs of other people. Sin blocks your ability to see God’s will and to open yourself to pray “thy will be done.” In doing so, you put yourself in a contest of wills with God.

Knowing God’s Will

When you recognize that the four ways of thinking described above dominate your life, you won't wonder at the fact that knowing God’s will can seem mysterious or even impossible to grasp. So how do you jump this chasm and begin to understand how God thinks? How can you know God’s will? This question is often posed like a calculus problem or some sort of ancient puzzle that only someone like Indiana Jones can solve: If only one works hard enough, he or she will be able to figure out the answer eventually.

You may be surprised to know that you don’t need a calculator or fedora to find the will of God; the real answer to that mystery is surprisingly down-to-earth, boiling down to six basic steps:

  • Know the Bible.
  • Forget about yourself.
  • Listen to God speak.
  • Look around you.
  • Pray to draw you nearer to God.
  • Just do it.

These steps aren’t meant to be a magical formula to knowing the mysteries of God’s will, but they’re definitive steps, proven by Scripture, that can greatly aid you to know God’s will for your life. But does it work?

George Müller, who lived in the 19th century, is a good person to consider when trying to answer this question. He followed steps similar to these for much of his life. For over 69 years, whenever he sincerely and patiently sought to know the will of God, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit and Word of God, he said, “I was always directed rightly.” But when he was not upfront with God, was impatient, or favored listening to the advice of his friends, he said candidly, “I made great mistakes.”

Know God’s Word

By far, the single most important way to know God’s will is to read and study the Bible. Nothing else even comes close. You may think it strange that the best thing you can do to know God’s will in the 21st century is to read a book that is thousands of years old, but it’s true.

Imagine that you are an architect and have a fascination with Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. As a student of Wright, you want to “get into his mind” and understand the thought processes that led him to make the architectural decisions that he did. But Wright has long since died, so how can you get into his mind since you can't talk to him face to face?

For one thing, you can study his library of blueprints and examine the buildings that he had constructed. You can look at one blueprint or one house and start to get a grasp of what Wright thinks, but when you look at all of his works together, you can begin to construct a fairly comprehensive understanding of Wright’s architectural genius. After you become a Wright expert, suppose that a real estate agent tries to convince you to buy a New England Colonial on the premise that Wright secretly designed and built it. As a student of Wright’s work, you know at once that the agent is either ill-informed or a scoundrel.

In the same way, reading through the Bible helps give you a clearer sense of who God is by exploring what he likes and doesn’t like and discovering how he worked in the world during the Old and New Testament times. As a result, since the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrew 13:8), you can better discern what his will is in today’s world. The Bible is also the best litmus test for determining whether something is the will of God.

God will never do something that is not in line with Scriptures. You can always count on that. In reading His Word, you find over and over that God wants purity, fidelity, and honesty. So you can be certain that God never tells you to have an affair, no matter how bad your marriage is, or cheat your employer, regardless of how much you need the money. And, on the positive side, as you discover God’s purpose for the world, you also realize what He wants you to focus on and be devoted to.

Reading the Bible may seem less electrifying than hearing God talk to you through dreams or visions, but most Bible scholars would suggest that God’s written Word is the preferred method of communication that the Lord uses for today’s world.

Forget about yourself

You may already see pretty clearly by now that you don’t think like God, so when you're seeking God’s will, one of the best things you can do is to forget about your feelings or opinions on what you’re praying about. Frankly, your self-interest is Public Enemy #1 to finding the will of God.

Obviously, you can’t do this by simply turning on a switch and instantly being able to see God’s point of view instead of your own. Instead, this act of replacing your perspective for God’s is a process, one that takes time. But if you ask God to help you and are diligent in your efforts, you’ll find that, over time, you become less and less concerned with your self-interest.

George Müller was a great man of prayer. He ran an orphanage in Bristol, England, totally through prayer and trusting in the Lord. Instead of begging people for money, he simply believed that God would provide. Müller remarked that you can overcome nine-tenths of the difficulties of knowing the will of God when you forget about your will and make the deliberate decision to allow yourself to be ready and open for God’s action.

When you pray to know God’s will, specifically ask God to help you forget yourself!

Listen to God speak

A third way to know God’s will is to learn to listen to Him speak. He’s not going to speak to you with a voice like George Burns in the film Oh God!, but He does speak to your spirit in a way that can be just as confirming as if you heard it with your ears. What’s more, you’re prewired to listen to God, but whether you take advantage of this “broadband access” is up to you. Listening to God is a huge issue in and of itself, so I cover it in full detail in Chapter 19.

Look around you

Scottish preacher Oswald Chambers (1874-1917), a great prayer warrior who wrote the classic devotional My Utmost For His Highest , always stressed that we have a proactive God, one who engineers circumstances in our lives. Chambers says God brings people into situations so that they can learn the particular lessons He wants them to learn. Therefore, looking to circumstances can indicate God’s direction in your life.

Here are a couple words of warning, however:

  • Never look at circumstances by themselves and make assumptions about God’s will, or you’ll easily be misled. Instead, look at circumstances in combination with these other steps to confirm His will. 
  • Don’t assume that all circumstances that happen, particularly the bad ones, are God’s will. (See the “Is everything that happens God’s will?” sidebar, later in the chapter, for details on this tough issue.)

Pray to draw you nearer

Perhaps you’re reluctant to pray “thy will be done” when you’re not exactly sure what the Lord’s will is. But don’t let that reluctance stop you from praying altogether. It’s quite natural to want to understand God’s will so that you can pray accordingly. The irony, however, is that the more you pray, the more you’ll discover God’s will in the process.

Watchman Nee, founder of the Little Flock house church movement in China in the early 20th century, once said that a person who prays not only comes closer to God but also frequently enters into His will. Imagine that! When you pray consistently and earnestly, your thoughts start to tap into God’s thoughts, making His will clearer to you.

Just do it

Even long-time believers expend an enormous amount of energy on the question of knowing God’s will. But be careful not to make the answer more complicated than it really is. The answer is not just in front of you, but is actually part of you.

Oswald Chambers makes a good point when he says that, if you’re among God’s faithful, you are the will of God. Your everyday common-sense decisions are then God’s will for you unless He gives you an “inner check.” When He gives you a red flag, immediately stop what you’re doing, pray, and wait on the Lord for direction before proceeding. But if not, it’s like that famous slogan from that sports and fitness company: Just do it!

Chambers says it well in his devotional: “Don’t say ‘thy will be done,’ but see it is done.”

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