Our Hope: His Will

“Your kingdom come.. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  Matthew 6:10 (NKJV)

“YOUR will be done … “.  The text does not state my will.  It does not read our will.  Jesus said it, and He said it quite clearly.  He was speaking of the Father, and it was His Father’s will to which He was referring.

We live in a world of our will be done.  It is always a race, trying to balance our needs and our wants.  We listen to and watch as our friends and family search for and acquire the same things we are seeking.  And all of those things are usually not the things of God, but of our own determinations.

As I stand by and watch my own mother’s slow departure from life as we know it, I struggle with will.  It’s mine versus God’s.  And while His truth rings in my mind, my heart demands something else entirely.  Healing, restoration, mercy are all at the foremost in my thought patterns.  I cannot accept that which is unacceptable to me.  The pain is too real, too intense, and simply too much to bear.  Yet it isn’t, when I understand what His will means to me.

Jesus always did and still does the will of His Father.  Even unto His own suffering and death He did it.  In teaching and preaching He stressed the Father’s will, not the will of any other.  So why do we fight His will?

To demand our own way is part of our lowly human condition.  We want and expect everything to be like the movie with a happy ending.  There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting the best outcomes.  In fact, God’s Word tells us, “make your requests known to God … ” (Philippians 4:6).  But as believers and followers of Jesus, we must realize that our requests will never trump His will.  Who is wiser than our God? And who has our best interests in His heart other than the Father?

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”  Jeremiah 29:11

So as I make my peace, choosing His will over mine, and admitting that God’s love for my mom is so much more than mine ever could be, I am finding that peace and hope I so desperately long for.  Once we place these things in God’s hands and believe, as we pray, that He understands and does not diminish our sorrows, His will then becomes the best and most important of all things. And it will become our focus. Hence, we can survive anything because of the hope He brings to us with His will.

Jesus is Our Hope. Because He accepted His Father’s will and went to Calvary without any turning away, we can know that Hope is indeed ours, and our future is already safe in His hands.  He is to be glorified and honored, for Jesus is indeed Our Hope.

How has God’s will affected a situation in your life for which you had hoped to see a different outcome?  Please share your story!

Blessings!