A great piece from Dr. Scott Murray's Memorial Moment - Tuesday of Easter 5
The
church and her children constantly pray that the Lord's will would be done on
earth as it is in heaven in the words of the Lord's Prayer. Yet when the Lord's
will is done we often grumble about it, pouting that the Lord's will does not
quite square with our own opinion and will. So when we are praying that the
Lord's will would be done, it is a prayer that we should receive it as such, in
faith and full confidence of the divine grace. The Lord's will is done. There
is no question about that. Our problem is merely one of faith. We would like
God's will to look somewhat differently! "Why can't His will be more like
my own?" Thankfully, the Lord does not give us what we wish for, because
all too often, what we wish for would not be good for us.
It is a
measurement of our human incapacity that we are so full of wishful thinking.
When we say "That is wishful thinking," we are reflecting on the
impossibility of the wish. It's never going to happen. The Lord's will is the
precise opposite. What He wills is done on earth as it is in heaven. Notice
that in English we never describe God's will as a "wish." The word is
far too weak. This is why we are praying that we would accept the will of God
in our lives. So it was for Christ who suffered in the Garden, asking His
heavenly Father to take the cup of suffering from Him, but finally that God's
will would be done in His life (Lk 22:41-44). God's will
brings struggle and trial into the life of God's Son. He agonizes about what is
to come and He composes His will so that it would sing harmony with the will of
His Father. He accepts the cross and all of its suffering.
God's
will often implies suffering for those who accept it. This is why it is no
simple thing to live in the will of God. We often desire God to recompose His
will to suit our wishes: "God, couldn't I hit the lottery? Just
once?" The Lord's will means that our lives, present and future, are in
His gracious hands. We need to recognize this, especially when that will
implies our suffering with Christ and for his gospel (Mk 10:29).
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal ran a review of two books critical of the power
of positive thinking ("Everything will be fine, if we just think happy
thoughts."). One of the authors, inveterate liberal polemicist Barbara
Ehrenreich panned "the long history of positive thinking in America, which
might be summarized thus: dour 18th-century Calvinism begat floaty 19th-century
New Thought, which begat 20th-century New Ageism, Norman Vincent Peale and
today's mega-church 'prosperity gospel'" (WSJ, 12 October 2009). Here
Ehrenreich is right on track. Your happy thinking cannot trump the will of God.
We don't claim to know exactly how God's will is being played out in our lives,
but we pray that we can bear it when it we are set in the midst of it. Christ
Himself lived this way for us.
Cyprian of Carthage
"We ought to
remember that we should do not our own will, but God's, in accordance with what
our Lord has bidden us to pray daily. How preposterous and absurd it is, that
while we ask that the will of God should be done, yet when God calls and summons
us from this world, we should not at once obey the command of His will! We
struggle and resist, and after the manner of disobedient servants we are
dragged to the presence of the Lord with sadness and grief, departing hence
under the bondage of necessity, not with the obedience of free will. We wish to
be honored with heavenly rewards by Him to whom we come unwillingly. Why, then,
do we pray and ask that the kingdom of heaven may come, if the captivity of
earth delights us? Why with frequently repeated prayers do we entreat and beg
that the day of His kingdom may hasten, if our greater desires and stronger
wishes are to obey the devil here, rather than to reign with
Christ?"
Cyprian, On Mortality, 18
