The Lord's Prayer--Third Petition

Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Of all the petitions in the Lord’s prayer, this one is the hardest for us to pray sincerely. In this petition, we willingly surrender control of our lives and turn ourselves over to God’s leadership. With these words, we place God’s priorities and goals above our own.

Why is submission to the Lord such a hard thing? It’s because of sin. Sin opposes God; sin wants things that God warns are bad for us. Sin tempts children to play with matches. Sin lures teenagers to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage without thought of the consequences. Sin urges frustrated men to use a weapon to achieve their goals. Sin encourages women in troubled relationships to resort to lies. Sin promises fun and quick relief from life’s problems, but what it delivers is health ravaged by disease and addiction, relationships destroyed by impulsiveness and selfishness, souls plunged into despair by feelings of helplessness and futility, and, ultimately, death. Because of sin, we do not have the ability to fully comprehend the consequences of our actions and left to our own impulses, we inevitably make a mess of our lives.

If all we had to struggle with were our own frailties and limitations, they would be more than enough to make our lives miserable. But every day, we also face the constant pressure of other peoples’ misguided ways. At school, there are kids who want you to let them cheat off of your test, or teach you a new curse word. When you are at the bar, there are people who urge you to drink too much or to participate in casual sex. At work there are others who want you to ease up on your morals for the sake of increased profits, or to look the other way when rules are ignored. And because we want to fit in and be liked, it is hard to say no.

And as if all this were not enough, we have someone actively working to trip us up, an enemy worse than any hostile foreign dictator or soap opera villain, who constantly cooks up plans to trick us into making the very worst decisions possible. That enemy is Satan, the adversary who tries to ruin our relationship with God. He does this by telling us lies. He tries to get us to believe that we don’t need God, that we know what is best to make our lives happy. He tries to convince us that because God loves us, He is indulgent and doesn’t really care what we do. Satan even tries to fool us into believing that neither he nor hell really exists, so that we won’t be afraid of an angry God sending us to join him there when we die.

This is why it is so important that we turn to God for His wisdom and His leadership. Only He can reveal the truths that we need to know. Only He can bring us to where everlasting happiness may be found.

What is the will of God? In His holy Word, the Lord reveals two things that He wants above all others. The first is nicely summarized in 1st Timothy chapter two, where Paul writes: God our Savior…wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. More than anything else, the Lord Almighty wants everyone to know who He is, to understand what a terrible hateful thing sin is, and to realize that all are sinners and subject to God’s wrath. More than anything else, the King of the universe wants everyone to know His Son Jesus, that Jesus lived on earth to be perfect in our place, that He suffered hell on the cross in payment for our sins, that He died and rose from the grave to give us new life in exchange for everlasting death. More than anything else, our Lord wants every man, woman and child to know the truth about our sin and God’s mercy shown through Jesus Christ.

Secondly, it is God’s will that we lead lives that obey His rules. Peter writes, you must be holy in everything you do (1 Peter 1:15). This is why God gave us the Ten Commandments. This is why He gave us the Golden Rule. He wants us to obey His rules because He is a God of order, not chaos. He wants us to obey His rules, because by so doing we show Him our love and respect. He wants us to obey His rules, because when we live by them we are demonstrating His love and care to every other child of God. He wants us to obey His rules because He loves us, and it is only by following His rules that we can have real, lasting peace and contentment.

And yet as we look around us, it becomes abundantly clear that God’s will is not always done. It was not God’s intention that Adam and Eve should sin, but they did. It was not the will of God that Judas be eternally lost to hell for betraying Jesus, yet Judas turned traitor for a sack of money, committed suicide rather than come to Jesus in shame, and is now suffering eternally for turning away from His Lord. The world is filled with hatred, violence, perversions, and dishonesty, yet these are not the will of God.

Jesus told us to pray Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. He told us to pray these words because earth is filled with the suffering caused by our sins, the sins of those around us, and the plotting of the devil. Our Father in heaven did not create mindless puppets who dance on His strings for His amusement; no, our Father in heaven gave us life that we might respond to Him with a love that reflects His own, a love that no robot could ever give its creator. Sadly, many refuse to acknowledge His love or return it.

The mighty Ruler of all creation has given us a blessed gift—He has allowed us to come to Him in prayer, and takes our requests into consideration. He doesn’t have to. No one could keep God’s people from leaving their slavery in Egypt; no one could prevent their settling in the land that God had promised them. No one could stop Jesus going to the cross to suffer and die for our sins. No one could keep Jesus from leaving the tomb alive to give joy and hope to His faithful followers. And no one can avoid being judged by the Lord on the Last Day; we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10). God is ruler of all, and when He has determined that something must be done, nothing can oppose His will.

Scripture tells us that this most powerful of all beings is willing to be flexible—otherwise, there would be no point in praying. God extended King Hezekiah’s life by 15 years in response to the man’s heartfelt prayer. God was willing to alter His planned destruction of Sodom in response to Abraham’s repeated pleadings. Scripture promises, The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective (James 5:16).

And yet we must be prepared for those times when the will of God results in our prayers being answered with a no. Sometimes we ask for something that is not appropriate, and God turns down our request. An example is given us in Mark chapter 10: the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him…"Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom." "You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. There are also times when what we request does not dovetail with God’s plan for our lives. Paul complained of an unnamed ailment that troubled him; in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 he tells us of his prayers to God and the response that he was given: Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." There are times when our current situation serves God best just as it is.

When we pray, are there things that we should not ask for? Yes—we should never ask for something that we know will displease God. While it is certainly appropriate to ask for victory over those who oppose God, we should never pray that they be denied mercy and be sent to hell. Nor should we ever ask the Lord to bless us as we go about breaking any of His commandments.

We know that there are certain things God always wants us to pray for—mercy for ourselves and all other sinners, and the proclamation of the Gospel everywhere. God wants us to pray for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and for the spiritual gifts that he brings—love, patience, kindness and all the rest. God wants us to pray for His wisdom so that we can see what we should be doing for Him in this world, and ask Him for the strength and skills we need to serve Him effectively.

But what about the rest? What about all the things we want or need that are neither clearly included in God’s will or clearly excluded from it? In all these cases we must pray as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane, not my will, but yours be done (Luke 22:42). Who knows if moving to that new house will be for the best in the long run? Who knows if marriage to that person will result in a family dedicated to the Lord in all things? Who knows if more or less rain today will ultimately result in a better harvest down the road? No one can see the future—no one but the Lord. So when we come before Him on bended knee seeking His help, we show our trust in His wisdom by praying Thy will be done.

Thy will be done are among the hardest words for us to pray, right up there with "I admit that I have sinned." But when we pray Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven and put ourselves into the Lord’s hands, it takes a tremendous burden off our shoulders. It is no longer up to us to come up with the answers; we need no longer fear the consequences of our actions. When we let God lead, we can trust that He knows where He’s leading us, and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28). Not my will, Lord, but Yours be done.