A Call To Arms

A Call to Arms

Read: Matthew 6:9-13

“Your will be done.”

Matthew 6:10

“God’s will is not an itinerary but an attitude.”

—Andrew Dhuse

IN WORD When Jesus instructed His disciples to pray that God’s will be done, He never intended it as the feeble resignation to some mysterious will that we can’t quite comprehend. We too often use this phrase as a caveat to those who hear us, in effect saying, “I really don’t know what God’s will is, but let’s see if this prayer hits the mark.”

No, when we say “Thy will be done,” it is to be an assault on the gates of hell. It is an offensive march against the evil of this world. There is nothing defensive or ambiguous about it. It calls for God to make His kingdom manifest in this enemy territory, taking ground that the adversary has stolen. It is specific and assertive, a battle cry against everything that is not His will. It is war.

Observe the Master who gave us this instruction. When did He pray “Your will be done”? It was before the ultimate battle against His human nature and the powers of darkness, as He pondered the coming Cross in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:42).

IN DEED This request is not to be a statement of our resignation or the fine print at the bottom of our prayers that takes our will out of the situation. We are right to be suspicious of our own wills and defer to the Father’s. But while this request is an appropriate deferral to His higher plan, it is much more. It is a conscious appeal to bring God’s kingdom into victorious conflict with the hostility and depravity of our world. We are not only saying “not my will,” we are also saying “not the enemy’s will.”

Wherever human tendencies or a corrupt world comes into conflict with the revealed will of God, we are to pray “Thy will be done.” We know what His will is with regard to our own hearts, sin, evil and violence, salvation, and much more. Shall we be tentative in these areas? No, Jesus gives us a call to arms: Pray that God’s will be done.