Not just praying it for others, but ourselves. And meaning it!
The “Your will be done” prayer is part of
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,” is how the full clause goes, so we’re thinking about how God’s will gets done on earth as a whole, and by all humanity instead of us as individuals. When we pray it, we’re praying humanity collectively does God’s will. We’re not always remembering that we—you and I and everyone else—have to do God’s will too. Usually we’re thinking about how everybody else really oughta follow God’s will, ’cause they don’t, the earth sucks, and it’s their fault.
So when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we’re not always praying that we do God’s will. We make it a prayer for everyone else. Everyone not us.
But we are part of collective humanity, and today let’s get away from how everybody else isn’t pulling their weight. When you pray “Your will be done,” trying praying it this way: “Your will be done by me.”
’Cause we do wanna do God’s will, right?
Well no, we don’t always. Let’s be honest. We wanna do our will. We’re ready and eager to do God’s will when it coincides with our will.
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 comes right after
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 it’s 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. Well, my will is to do a bunch of stuff I consider fun. But I’ve gotta give all that stuff up for God.” They immediately think of
Which is an entirely incorrect picture of God. He doesn’t want to suck all the fun out of our lives!
To be fair, a lot of the reason new and young Christians worry God’s a killjoy, is because a whole lot of Christians are definitely killjoys. There are a lot of fruitless people out there who
You know where that mindset comes from?
The newbies who worry God wants to take away all our fun: Well, maybe he does, because you’re into sick ’n twisted “fun.” But he doesn’t want to take it away and leave us with nothing. He wants to give us better, and more. Jesus didn’t come to ruin everything we hold dear, but to replace all our ruined stuff with abundant life.
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.