The Importance of Prayerনমুনা

Prayer Aligns Our Will to God’s Will

‘Your kingdom come,

Your will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.’ Matthew 6:10

I love how clear Jesus’ reverence and honour is towards His Father. Everything is about the Father, everything is for the Father, and everything is done unto the Father.

Jesus says, “Father, Your name be hallowed, Your kingdom come, Your will be done.” This is how He teaches us to pray too.

As much as my head knows, understands, and believes this, I find myself falling into praying something like this instead: “God, hallowed be my name, my kingdom come, and my will be done.”

Okay, perhaps my prayers don’t sound exactly like this word for word. But I do pray prayers that put me at the centre instead of God. I pray for the things that I desire: the job I want to do, the place where I want to live, the person I want to be with…

When did I stop to ask the Lord for His perspective?

Dear friend, I can honestly say that praying for the Father’s will to be done in me and through me has been the hardest thing for me to learn as I have walked with God.

The reason for this is because it requires the total surrender of my will unto God’s will. That’s not an easy thing for us to do…

For it requires so much rethinking and rewiring of our minds. It requires greater depths of trusting in the Lord and of relinquishing control of our lives over to God. It requires us to humble ourselves and to admit that we don’t actually know what’s best for our lives. Ultimately, it displaces us from the throne that we are sitting on, and it puts God back where He belongs.

However, dear friend, the more that we surrender our will to God, the more He aligns our will to His. In the process, it’s likely that He will show us that many of our desires are what we wanted but not what we needed. Ultimately, the Lord’s will is perfect and He sees everything, unlike ours which is limited and imperfect.

As hard as it can be to surrender our will to the Lord’s, it is the true mark of a disciple who trusts in his Lord. Rest assured, beloved, that the Lord’s will for you is always good. In fact, it is perfect.

May we all seek to be believers who not only hear Jesus’ instruction to pray like this, but may we actually do it! If God is truly our Lord, then this is how we will live – in obedience to His words (Luke 6:46-48). May the prayer of our hearts ever be, “Father, Your name be hallowed, Your will be done, Your kingdom come!”

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. May this be the prayer of my heart from today onwards. Father, less of me and more of you. Lord, I repent for putting myself on the throne of my life. I step off that throne today, and invite You to take Your rightful place. Please transform my thinking, show me that You are in control, and help me to know that You know what’s best for my life. Show me what Your will is today.

In Jesus’ name, amen.