In my devotions this week, I found myself contemplating how often we make plans & then ask for God’s blessing on them. We maintain control & authority over our own lives rather than allowing God to be the decision-maker in what & how & why we live. We all do it, myself included, as probably one of the biggest blessing seekers. We want to have X, Y, & Z in our lives, so we act according to those desires & actions that we know will bring those results. Then, we invite the Creator of the universe along for the ride of our lives. I mean, when you decided to go to college or not, did you ask for God to bless that decision or be a part of the decision-making itself? When you decided you wanted to live in a specific location, whether a town, a development, or the actual place you call home, did you decide that seemed like a good choice for the goals & purposes you’ve chosen in your life? Or did you ask for God to help you discern & decide? When you choose to have a family or not have a family, did you ask the Lord to bless that decision or be the One to help you make that decision? Suppose you, or a loved one, has been gravely ill. Did you tell the Alpha & Omega you weren’t ready for physical death in your lives & to remove the illness altogether, or did you ask that whatever the Savior’s will in the journey of life would reveal through you the glory of God rather than the will of a person?
Put another way, what does it really mean when we pray, “Thy will be done”?
There is a big difference between asking God to bless our decisions & asking God to be the decision-maker in our lives. Everyone wants a holy blessing in their life journey; very few want to submit their will to the will of anyone else, including the will of the Almighty. I think, however, that when we live according to God’s will rather than our own, we experience a peace that others feel when they’re in our presence. We’ve all met that person, the one who goes with the flow of life & has a certain peace about them. Even as they own their decisions & actions, there is an inherent peace about them as they submit to the will of the Holy One as their own. I wonder what life would look like if we let go of our own will, especially the will for power, control, & dominion, submitting our lives to the only One who has a perfect will. I wonder about this from our daily lives to the local church community, to world powers & wars for dominance, revenge, & other personal gains & everything in between. I guess it all starts with me surrendering my will & trusting the rest will reveal God’s will in time. May we surrender our will in our personal lives & in the life of this church so that we may live into the will of our Creator, revealing the glory of Christ to all the world.
In Christ’s Love,
