The “Your will be done” prayer.

Matthew 6.10.

The “Your will be done” prayer is part of the Lord’s Prayer. Obviously it’s the “Thy will be done” bit. Mt 6.10 I’ve already discussed where we’re praying for his will to be done. Today it’s more about how we fulfill that particular prayer of his. Yep, it’s about doing God’s will.

Matthew 6.10 KWL

“Make your kingdom come.

Make your will happen both in heaven and on earth.”

Typically when Christians pray “Your will be done,” we’re not talking about ourselves. We’re talking about everyone. “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” is how the clause goes, so we’re thinking about how God’s will presumably gets done in heaven, and how God’s will oughta be done on earth… and by all humanity instead of us as individuals. When we pray it, we’re playing society, or our country, or humanity as a whole, starts obeying God’s will. We’re not always remembering we Christians really oughta do God’s will too. We’re not what’s wrong with the world; it’s them.

So yeah, when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, or just the “Your will be done” prayer, this isn’t about ourselves; it’s for everyone else. Anyone else. But we too are a part of society, our country, and humanity. So today, why don’t we step away from the idea everyone else isn’t really pulling their weight: Next time you pray, “Your will be done,” try praying it thisaway: “Your will be done by me.”

’Cause we do wanna do God’s will, right?

Well, let’s be honest, no we don’t. Not always. Not really. We wanna do our will.

We’re ready and eager to do God’s will whenever it coincides with our will. God wants us to go to church, and if we like church, cool! And if we hate church, this is a huge problem… and suddenly we’re gonna be very receptive to any Christian who tells us we might not have to go; that “the communion of saints” is an option, that you can forsake gathering together, He 10.25 and that you won’t grow undisciplined, weird, heretic, and less loving because you’ve no one to sharpen your iron. Pr 27.17 Basically we’ll just do our own thing, cling to any excuse for why God might be okay with it, and even imagine it was all his idea, if we can mentally get away with it.

So, sometimes we wanna do God’s will. Which is why we need to keep praying this prayer. We need to learn to always wanna do his will. We need God to not let us get away with weaseling out of it.

What comes after relinquishment.

The “Your will be done” prayer typically comes right after the “Not what I want” prayer. In Richard Foster’s book Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, bunches ’em together and calls them “the Prayer of Relinquishment.”

With all due respect, “Not what I want” is the relinquishment part: Okay, I’m gonna surrender my desires, wants, “needs,” and impulses to God. But then taking up God’s will instead: Is it really wise to describe God’s will as relinquishment?

See, whenever Christians talk about setting aside our will for God’s, we’re in the really bad habit of talking about this as if this is some kind of loss. As deprivation. Self-denial. Surrender. Doing without. Living with less. That’s immediately what newbies and teenagers tend to think about: “Not my will but God’s. My will is to do a bunch of stuff I consider fun, but I’ve gotta give up all that stuff up for God.”

Lenten-style fasts immediately come to their minds. But not just for the 40 days before Easter; forever. All this fun stuff they can’t do anymore, ’cause God. No more weed. No more porn. No more swearing, and just after they learned some really cool swears. No more horrifically violent video games, ’cause Christians don’t approve of such things, so they’re pretty sure God might not approve of ’em either. No fun of any kind. God’s a killjoy.

Which is an entirely incorrect picture of God. He doesn’t want to suck all the fun out of our lives! Joy’s a fruit of the Spirit, remember? God wants his kids to have fun. But his ideas of fun are more fun than numbing our brains with alcohol and THC, then waking up in a pool of one’s own sick and wondering why your butt hurts. (From the poorly-chosen tattoo and its placement; what’d you think I meant? Pervs.)

To be fair, a lot of the reason new and young Christians worry God’s a killjoy, is because too many Christians are definitely killjoys. There are a lot of fruitless people out there who try to claim joy is actually patience to cover up the fact they lack joy. When Christians have fun, these people object we’re not being solemn enough. When Christians enjoy ourselves, they fret we’re wasting time which should be spent sacrificing or ministering.

You know where this mindset comes from? Karma. Some part of ’em believes if we’re happy now, we need to be sad later in order to balance out the universe. So if we have too much fun in this age, we’re not gonna get any fun in the next—and they wanna enjoy heaven, so they’re determined to make earth no fun at all. Again, that’s karma, not grace. God isn’t short on resources, and that includes joy. If you’re suffering, seize joy Jm 1.2 —don’t figure, “I’ll suffer in this world so I can enjoy the next.” Stop doing that to yourself! It’s not how God’s kingdom works. At all.

The newbies who worry God wants to take away all our fun: Well if all your fun is evil fun, maybe he does. But he doesn’t want to take it away and leave us with nothing in return: He wants to give us better, and more. Jesus didn’t come to ruin everything we hold dear, but to replace all our already-ruined stuff with abundant life. Jn 10.10 And we gotta learn to trust this is what he’s up to. He wants to give, not take.

So “Not what I want” is relinquishment, but right after that comes “Your will be done”: God, what do you want me to have that’s way better than what I’ve just quit? Because it is way better. You’ll see.