My will

“yet not My will, but Thine be done.”  Luke 22:42

My will – The purpose of living is to practice aligning my will with the will of God.  This is learned behavior.  Most of the time, it is learned in struggle.  Jesus was no exception to this rule.  Jesus learned obedience through suffering.  And in this verse, the culmination of his mission, he remains faithful to his training.  One more time he aligns his will with the will of the Father.

What does it mean for us to practice this alignment?  What is “my will”?  Too often what comes to mind are moral issues, the petty crimes of disobedience.  But alignment with the will of God begins with a much bigger picture.  Perhaps we need to step back and take a look at the red flags that indicate we are not in alignment.

When Jesus dropped to his knees in the Garden and uttered these words, he recognized something profound about the world.  The structure of the universe does not rest on fear and risk but on the love and reliability of God.  The universe under God’s control is a place of trust.  If I am going to line up with the will of the Father, I must learn to trust Him.  Whenever fear and risk begin to determine my choices, I should see red flags.  Perfect love casts out fear.  And for good reason.  Fear undermines everything I know about the faithfulness of God.  Fear tells me that God is not in charge, that the world is a harmful and scary place and that I am on my own.  My will is a simple extension of this view of the universe.  My will rests on the assumption that I must care for myself and protect myself against a hostile and untrustworthy world.

But God says “No.”  God says that as long as I am obedient, I can put all my trust in His authority over the world.  I do not need to fear anything, no matter what my circumstances, because He is in charge.

Step back from the individual moral choices of your life and ask yourself what kind of world you live in.  Do you really believe that you can trust the world because God is in charge?  Do you really think that the world is conspiring through God’s love to bring about your very best?  Or are you afraid?  The answers to these questions set the stage for the submission of “my will”.

What kind of world do you live in?