"Thy will be done..."
The Lord's Prayer is one of my favorite Scripture passages, and I love to pray most of it, but this phrase reminds me of a truth about me that I don't like to face: I am a control freak! When I pray "Thy will be done" and mean it, I am acknowledging that God knows what is best for my life and that I will ultimately trust Him with my life.
I have caught myself praying quite a bit over the last couple of days praying for my will to be done. In a sense, I am reducing the Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth into a "genie in a bottle" and telling Him do what I want Him to do.
"Make the miracles happen God, and Your Name will be blessed because of it!"
I recently preached Romans 12:1-2 and I still messed up because of it. We are a few weeks removed from the message being delivered but God is still trying to work out this sermon in my life.
A renewed mind and transformed life can only begin with a spiritual yielding. We must lay down our hopes, dreams, desires, ambitions, plans, and schemes in order to present ourselves as empty-handed living sacrifices whose only hope is in living out God's plans (which are so much better in the long run, yet that is so hard for us to see from our limited perspective).
Am I yielding my heart and longings to God? Do I come to Him with a list of wishes and demands or do I offer to Him a pair of uplifted empty hands?
It is probably no coincidence that the words that just played on my iPod as I just wrote the last few lines said, "Here I am, take me as an offering--Worthy, Worthy, You are Worthy..." (From the song "Alabaster Jar" on the Wake Up the World CD by Gateway Worship).
I don't want "thy will be done" to be a tag line at the end of my spiritual wishlist, but to be the most sincere longing of my heart! This spiritual yielding thing is difficult for me, but I know that His plan is best, and I want God to be pleased with me...
And that can only happen when I get my plans out of His way!
Comments