Your Will Be Done

PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

    on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:9-10, NIV)

 

REFLECTIONS:
For the next few weeks, the focus of our devotionals will be the spiritual discipline of submission. Submission does not mean blindly following anyone who tells us to do something. Rather, the best biblical description of submission comes from Jesus himself when he says, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23). Self-denial is an unfamiliar concept for many of us today, and we worry that it requires losing our individuality. But all self-denial means is realizing that we do not always have to have our own way, that our happiness does not depend on getting what we want. Subordinating our own will to another's can be gloriously freeing. When we give up the need to always get our own way, we can hold the things of this world lightly. We always submit first to God, but submitting to others frees us to value our brothers and sisters in a way that is difficult if not impossible when we are thinking only of our own self-interest. As in all the spiritual disciplines, we have no better example to follow than Jesus himself. When we read the gospel accounts of his life, we see that Jesus lived a life of total and complete self-denial. Through his teachings, his attitude, his actions, and his prayers, we see that Jesus yielded every aspect of his life to the will of his Father.

So to begin this process of surrendering ourselves to the Father's will, today we focus our thoughts on a couple of verses that serve as the foundation to what we call The Lord's Prayer. Many of us pray for God's will to be done, even while silently or unconsciously adding a coda to our requests: As long as your will is the same as my own. Yet one of the fundamental lessons of the Christian life is that God knows better than we ourselves what will truly make us happy. For the next several days we will try to experience the freedom that comes from setting aside our own will and self-interest. Do not focus so much on asking specific questions of God, such as whether you should take a walk or drive one route or the other; instead, just try to live each day with an attitude of surrender rather than struggle. In your prayer times also ask God what you can do to better practice submission—you will discover ways to submit to God and matters large and small. These words from Richard Foster best describe our task: 

At the beginning of our day we wait, in the words of the hymn writer, "yielded and still" before the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The first words of our days form the prayer of Thomas a Kempis, "As thou wilt; what thou wilt; when thou wilt." We yield our body, mind, and spirit for his purposes. Likewise, the day is lived in deeds of submission interspersed with constant ejaculations of inward surrender. As the first words of the morning are of submission, so are the last words of the night. We surrender our body, mind, and spirit into the hands of God to do with us as he pleases through the long darkness. 

 

PRAYER:
Heavenly Father, you are so good. You are faithful to the end. You are generous beyond measure. You are unchanging in your love toward us. Because of who you are and because of the ways that you love us, we rejoice to yield all of our life to you. We humbly submit our lives into your hands, and ask that your will might be done in us and through us. We surrender our past, our present, and our future into your hands. And, we trust that whatever life brings our way, you will faithfully walk with us as our closest Companion.


WHO AM I?
I am Tres Sansom, and I’m a proud Texas Rangers fan. Despite losing several key players in free agency and several key pitchers to injury, this baseball team just keep on clicking. Although they've hit a rough stretch of late, they still have the third best record in the entire league. Go Rangers!