Pray Like This: Reflections on the Lord’s Prayerናሙና

Your Will Be Done

Was there ever a time when you didn’t know what God’s will was? In 2006, my dad was admitted to a hospital due to a brain hemorrhage. I was earnestly praying and believing God for healing. As I was sitting in the hospital, one of our relatives came over and said, “David, I hope you are ready to accept God’s will, no matter what it is.” I was furious at him for saying that. I desperately wanted my dad to recover, so I thought that God’s will was to heal him. Eventually, that night, my dad went to be with the Lord. It turned out that God’s will was to take my dad home. It was very difficult to accept that.

We have our own wishes, desires, and dreams, and sometimes they are contrary to God’s will. God’s ways and thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). That’s why, in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught His disciples to pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

As we pray, we must seek and do God’s will. In heaven, God’s will is never opposed, but on this earth, it is opposed by the unsaved and sometimes even by the saved. The verb “be done” in the phrase “your will be done” is in the aorist imperative (a verb tense in the ancient Greek language), which means it calls for urgent action. God’s will is “good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2) because God is all-wise and all-knowing. We must pray that God’s righteous will must be done on this earth. We must have the burning desire to do God’s will.

Jesus is our ultimate example of doing God’s will. On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus was praying in the garden of Gethsemane. He was under intense emotional pressure. He dreaded the fact that He will be abandoned by the Father for a time as the sins of the whole world would be laid upon Him. Jesus was praying that if possible, the Father would choose some other way to accomplish the salvation of humankind. But there was no other way and, thus, Jesus eventually submitted to the Father’s will. It was not easy for our Lord to do that. But read what He says in Matthew 26:39: "And going a little farther He fell on His face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.'"

We are called to do God’s will, even if it’s difficult. As disciples of our Christ, our ultimate goal must be to do His will (7:21; 12:50). Let’s follow the example of Christ in doing the Father’s will.