Deeper Life #356

And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

—Acts 9:6

AN EMINENT MINISTER OF THE gospel once wrote, “Sanctification is a supreme desire not to want to have your own way.” This quote is rather quaintly expressed but gloriously true, and has about it the fragrance of Gethsemane. It carries one back to the time when the Man of Sorrows went “a stone’s cast” further into the garden and cried, “Not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

Some have written about the “tragedy of Calvary,” but I am inclined to believe it was one of the great triumphs in God’s plan. When Saul of Tarsus met Jesus on the way to Damascus, he cried, “What wilt thou have me to do?” In that surrender of all, Saul’s own plans came into such obedience to the divine will that God, in the darkness of three days, revealed to him his work. It was a prelude to the days in which Saul would see what he must suffer for Jesus’ sake.

When one gets a vision of God, the supreme desire of the soul is “Thy will, not mine.”

Prayer Thought: Your will, not mine, be done, O Lord.

SUGGESTED READING: Acts 9:1–9