In all seasons of life and in every circumstance it brings, our prayer should be the same: “Thy will be done.” Though the Lord’s Prayer is not the only prayer we pray, it serves as a wonderful model that expresses the kind of praises and petitions we should always lift to the Lord. Among them is this: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” As we pray these words, we ask God to accomplish his will not only in the world, but also in our lives—to make use of our lives to carry out his purposes. It is an audacious prayer, for it gives God permission (as if he needs it) to direct our lives in a way that brings glory to him, even if it brings pain to us.
No matter what sorrow may invade our lives and no matter what pains may befall us, our calling is always the same: to do the will of God. And if we are to do the will of God, we are to pray for it and seek it. To pray “Thy will be done” is to submit ourselves to the greater wisdom and greater plan of a greater Being, to acknowledge that God is better at running a universe than we are, and to accept that his plan for our lives is superior to our own. Though we can and should make our desires known, greater than our own desires is the desire for God to do all that he pleases, for we know that what he pleases is always good.
To pray “Thy will be done” means more than “Thy will be endured.” It is more than a promise that we will grit our teeth and bear whatever his providence dictates. It will involve endurance, to be sure, but it must involve more than that. It must also involve submission and commission—submission to God’s will and commission to some new form of service. We must acknowledge that our sorrows are meaningful and purposeful in God’s sight and that in some way they fit us for duty before him. In some way, they prepare us to serve others and bring glory to his name.
Hence, we should say not only, “Thy will be done,” but also, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Accepting God’s will is always meant to lead to a better doing of God’s will. And so we pray, “Thy will be done, Lord. And now what do you wish for me to learn from this? What do you want me to do? How are you preparing me to display your glory? How are you fitting me to serve others?” These are the prayers that pour from a submissive, trusting heart.
What matters far more than how we like our circumstances is how we receive our circumstances, how we respond to them, and how we make use of them. We know from the moment of our loss, our injury, or our diagnosis that life will never be the same. But God does not mean for it to be, for he has called us to something new—some new calling, some new duty, some new means of service. This hardship did not blindside him or leave him scrambling to bring meaning from it. Rather, the one who knows the end from the beginning ordained and permitted it. We need to reconcile ourselves to the fact that he could have prevented it, but chose not to. He could have directed providence differently, but did not. Thus, we can only conclude that this is part of his plan—his good and perfect plan, for he can only will what is good. We are not to merely surrender what God has taken, but to lay it down at his feet as a sacrifice of love and obedience.
We are not to merely surrender what God has taken, but to lay it down at his feet as a sacrifice of love and obedience.
So we pray, “God, teach me how to serve you in sickness even better than I did in health. God, show me how to honor you in grief with even greater faithfulness than in joy. God, lead me to greater fruitfulness in lack than in abundance.” There is no returning to life as it was, and there is no good that comes from wishing we could roll back time. And so we must respond with complete submission and trust. We must exercise our faith by believing that God’s way is best. We must hold fast to the assurance that in due time our faith will be justified with such clarity and abundance that we will marvel at what God has done. We will declare to all who will hear: “God has done all things well.”
Inspired in part by the works of Maltbie Davenport Babcock.
