"Your will be done. Amen. " How many times have you ended your prayers with those words? How many times have you talked with God about the situation of your life and said that you were going to abide by His will, whatever that will might be? I know that I have prayed that over and over again. I pray that every weekend in worship. I pray that with people who are struggling in their lives. I pray that for people who are ill or facing surgery or treatments. I pray that in my own life.
Do you? Have you? When you pray that, how do you accept God's will? That is always the question. How do I accept God's will in my life? If I am praying for something, and it doesn't happen, how do I respond? I think about that because today I sit here waiting to hear from the doctor's office. For what? I find out today if I am going to have my left knee replaced on Thursday or not. I really would like to get this behind me. I really want it to happen because we have met all my out-of-pocket expenses for my insurance company. There won't be a further financial strain on the family if it happens on Thursday. If it doesn't, that means that we will need to meet all those financial obligations once again, and with the increase of the new year. And I say, "Lord, You wouldn't want to put that upon the family, would You? So Your will be done, but I think I know what that will should be." Oops, that is not really trusting in the will of the Lord, is it? It is me telling the Lord the way it should be, and then placing that "Your will be done" on the end of it.
Here is where it gets difficult. If I get the call that surgery will not happen, I will be challenged. I will probably be depressed. The challenge to my faith will be to accept God's will and move forward and live life as He would have me live. I go forward thanking the Lord for showing His will to me and learning to live according to it.
Isn't that what happens each day? We pray for someone, and they continue to have the cancer, heart disease, or whatever. We pray for someone, and they still die. We pray for the virus to be gone, and it isn't. We pray that our nation would get along, and it doesn't. And we say, "God, I prayed for Your will to be done and it wasn't." No, what we wanted wasn't done. God's will might well have been done. But we don't want to accept it.That and our sinfulness gets involved. Why don't people get along when I pray for it? Because they don't want to. They refuse to even try to get along. Sin gets involved. And people refuse to even listen to the Lord. There is a differenc here. It would be like me refusing to listen to the doctor's office, going to the hospital on Thursday and expecting them to do the surgery on my knee even though I am not scheduled. Then throwing a fit about it, getting upset and yelling at them, "But God wants me to have the surgery today!" I would be misuing the name of the Lord. I would be trying to force them to do something even when it is very obvious that it wasn't the will of the Lord for me to have surgery on that day. I make my will become God's will and then try to force it. It doesn't work that way.
God is the potter and I am the clay. I am not the potter and God is the not the clay. I cannot mold God into what I want. Instead, He molds me into His will. That is difficult. That is what it means to trust in the will of the Lord, to live in faith. Today, I pray that I may listen to the Lord as I go through the day. I ask that the Spirit would help me to live according to that will. And then, I pray that I will face each day with a certainty that God is with me and leading me.
Lord, Your will be done. Amen.
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