Giving control over to God

My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways (Isaiah 55:8).

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  But praying these words and meaning them can be two very different things.

It seems obvious that we want God’s will to be done.  God is love; we want His love to be active in our lives.  God hates evil and punishes it severely; we want to be protected from bad things happening to us or to those whom we care about.  But here’s the rub—we enjoy a little blackness every now and then.  We giggle at a dirty joke or a piece of juicy gossip.  We like to blow precious money on frivolous purchases.  We get a thrill from putting our health in needless danger, like driving too fast or abusing drugs.

When we say to God thy will be done, we don’t always like the consequences.  It may not be His will that you purchase that new car you’ve had your eye on; if you pray thy will be done, you might be disappointed to find out someone else made an offer on the car before you got the chance to.  It may not be God’s will that the person you bent the knee to accepts your proposal; if you pray thy will be done, you may discover that God wants you to remain single until someone better for you comes along. 

When you pray thy will be done, you are giving up control over your life; you are telling God that you trust Him to take charge.  That’s just as well—because sin corrupts our desires and undermines our decision-making, we are more often going the wrong way than the right.  Our will leads to frustration, loss of self-respect, hurt feelings and poisoned relationships.  God’s will leads to love, forgiveness, hope and self-worth. 

God’s will is holy; our will is not.  That means we often find ourselves at loggerheads with the LORD.  We get mad that things don’t go the way we want, never stopping to consider that God says my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways…As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  This is why Jesus taught us to pray thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  When push comes to shove, getting our way is the wrong choice—far better to let God’s will be done, that we might enjoy life with His blessings.