Your will be done…
One of the most asked questions I heard when I taught Bible classes was how we know the will of God. Somewhere along the line, the students had been told, or they had reasoned, that the will of God had primarily to do with the path their lives would take. God’s will was found in attending the right college, marrying the right partner, getting the right job, living in the right place, driving the right car, choosing the right place to vacation to retire. God’s will was a foreordained path laying across each big milestone of our life
Furthermore, God’s will could be either perfect or permissive. Ideally, we find God’s perfect will for us, meaning that we find the exact right job, person, and place. But, in the event we didn’t hit the bullseye perfectly, God had a permissive will for us that was sort of his second best. Sure, God might have wanted you to be a missionary, but you decided to be a businessman; God can still use you there…but not like he could have in the jungles of Africa. Yes, Susan is the best wife for you, but in case you don’t woo her properly or you make some mistake in your life, Michelle, Cindy, or Betty Lou are permitted. You might not be perfectly happy with them, but second place is better than last.
The problem with this distinction, and even this way of thinking, is how much pressure it actually puts on us. No matter what we do we will always be guessing if we are in his perfect or permissive will. Maybe a different job was what he wanted for me; maybe a different spouse was his first choice; maybe I should have moved to Walla Walla, Washington instead of staying in Los Angeles. Maybe the reason I can’t find a parking place is because…
Thankfully none of this is what is meant by God’s will.
Yeah, I know. I just lost a bunch of you. I guess that was God’s will. But I wonder if it was perfect or permissive?
Your will be done…
Sometimes the simplest statements answer the most complex questions. Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” God, through Christ Jesus, made us for the purpose of doing good works. It is that simple. The will of God is that we do good works.
But what, you might ask, does God mean by “good works?”
The Old Testament tells us that the Israelites were chosen by God to be his people. God then gave them his law and promised to them a land. He promised that they would have a king—a messiah—who would protect them and rule the nations of the world. When they moved into the Promised Land, they built homes for themselves and a temple for God. They offered God his required sacrifices and thrived at home. They eventually got a king, then another, and another, and most of them were bad. God then sent prophets to tell them they were about to lose their land…
Hey! Wait a minute…I thought they were in God’s Promised Land and doing what God expected by offering sacrifices, building houses, planting vineyards, and having children. They were just waiting for the day when their promised king would rule the world, as promised.
Yeah. They were all that, and a bag of worms…uh, chips. You see, they forgot to do the will of God. Read what Isaiah the prophet had to say to them:
Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
Woah! He calls them Sodom and Gomorrah…something’s rotten in the state of Israel!
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.
Wait a minute…didn’t God want them to offer sacrifices? If you read Leviticus it seems like they were always killing something for God. It’s what God wanted…it was his will.
When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts?
Well, wasn’t it God who told them to come into his court and offer sacrifices of bulls, lambs, and goats? It’s what God wanted…it was his will.
Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
God told them to have all these assemblies! Now he doesn’t want them. Make up your mind already! It’s what God wanted…it was his will.
When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
Wait a minute. God won’t listen to their prayers? He says their hands are full of blood? Of course they are, they had to kill all the sacrifices! It’s what God wanted…it was his will.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause (Isaiah 1:10-17).
Oh…now I get it.
God didn’t want them to follow all the rigors of the sacrificial system and festival calendars—all those external things. God wanted them to actually live lives filled with his goodness, justice, mercy, and love. This is what Samuel, another prophet, meant when he spoke to Saul after he disobeyed God’s direct commands. He said, “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” God’s will is more about obeying him than about the number of sacrifices offered.
This is something Jesus makes pretty clear when he said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34). The commandment of God—his very will—is for us to love one another. It is that we cease to do evil, that we learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice, and plead the case of unprotected.
When we pray “Your kingdom come” we pray for God’s work to be done in us; but when we pray “Your will be done” we pray that God’s work will be done through us. God’s will is not about us finding the perfect job, wife, and house but about us being God’s eyes, hands, and feet through which God blesses the earth.
Your will be done…
Read the Next Post: On Earth as it is in Heaven
