Throughout our lifetime we are called upon at numerous times to recite or sing the Lord’s Prayer whether it be at home, school or at church. Have we ever taken time out to fully understand these words and/or their meaning? Have we realized that the mechanical recitation is empty and meaningless if we do not fully comprehend what it is saying to us? Hence, the time has come for us to study the Lord’s Prayer instead of just merely regurgitating it. For it is only when we do so, will we realize that it is a powerful prayer which has the ability to transform our lives, as it challenges us spiritually, politically, economically and socially.
And so we say – “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen”. (Matthew 6: 9-13).
Serious thought needs to be given to each petition, as the prayer serves as a lens through which to see Jesus Himself, and to discover something of what He was about. We live, as Jesus lived, in a world all too full of injustice, hunger, hatred, and evil. The prayer cries out for justice, sustenance, forgiveness and deliverance to be given to all people. We need to fully understand that God has a will of Hs own, that God has purposes that are important to Him, and that will be accomplished. That God has reasons for what He does, what He wants, and that nothing is insignificant about any of His reasons. We need to fully understand that God is motivated or moved by His purposes and reason. That He has a specific objective in all He says, does and wants – and that His purposes, reasons, and motives are not given to Him by humans but by God himself.
When we fully grasp and understand that God has a specific plan for this world, which continues to unfold and that He has a specific plan for every country or nation about how things are to be done, we will also come to the realization that He has a specific plan for each of our individual lives as well. So whenever we repeat the prayer, it will hold meaning for us. We will also come to the realization that we just cannot pick out whatever “vision” we want for our lives, or for our businesses, or our country, and ask God to bless it for us.
We must align our will with His will for us. We must align our thinking and actions with God’s purpose and plan for us if we are to achieve success. Psalm 103 and other scriptures clearly proclaim that God is the Sovereign King of the universe, and we exist to do His will and not the other way around. That is a huge difference! He teaches us to pray “THY WILL be done.” It is not OUR will that we are praying to be done; it is God’s. When Jesus gave his disciples this prayer, he was giving them part of His own breath, His own life, His own prayer. The prayer is actually a condensation of His Father’s purposes.
Jesus has a reason for teaching us to pray “THY will be done” in the Lord’s Prayer because He wants us to ask for GOD’S direction for our lives. We are praying for God’s will to be done here on earth, just the way He has designed it up in heaven. This means we are submitting to what He wants for us and not what we want for ourselves. How often do we pray as if we expect God to change the universe and things just to accommodate us? Wanting Him to line up His will with our agenda? We make our wishes known, and we expect Him to change His will to give us what we want? Too often, we put ourselves in the centre forgetting that God may have something entirely different in mind for us. But, truth be told, His will always will take preeminence.
The will of God is of utter importance. Jesus Himself outlines in Mark 3:35, “Whoever does the will of My Father, the same is my mother and sister and brother.” He is saying that “the people who are truly related to me are the people who are concerned with the will of God. When we truly love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength, we will care little for our own will because we are engaged in a constant pursuit of self-denial.”
We have to learn to deny ourselves if we are to embrace God’s will. Luke 9:23 states, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself.” We must be consumed not with our own will but with the will of God. Jesus Himself lived what he preached, what He taught. It was His constant perspective. This was demonstrated just before his crucifixion. It was there in the Garden of Gethsemane where He was saying from the agony of anticipating the separation from the Father, “Oh God let…Oh Father God, let this cup, this cup of wrath pass from me. Nevertheless not my will but Thine be done,” Matthew 26:42. His thoughts were centred on the will of God, not His own. He wanted God to do His will.
God will arrange everything that happens in our lives, in the world and in our country ultimately to His will. All things will ultimately resolve in His eternal purpose which was established before the world began. Regardless of how much we pray, what we say or do, that will not hinder or abort God’s will. There’s no use in praying about, complaining about or trying to change it. It should give us comfort to know that God’s will is going to be done regardless of what men do, say, think or feel. God’s will be done whether we want it to or not. God can never be manipulated, coerced or intimidated. Things will play out just as God has determined they will, and nothing will derail His purposes because God’s will is connected with God’s Spirit, which is connected with God’s desires.
In John 4:34 He said, “My food is to do the will of Him that sent Me.” My food, My nourishment, My delight, My daily necessity, My joy, My sustenance, where I draw My life is from the will of Him that sent Me. That’s all that Jesus ever wanted. He said, “I only speak what the Father tells me to speak, I only do what the Father tells me to do.” In John 6:38, He further said, “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent me.”
It is unfortunate that we just remotely repeat the Lord’s Prayer like robots without fully understanding it. It is also unfortunately true that uncounted millions have repeated the prayer without the faintest notion of what God’s will is. Perhaps even more alarming is that even more people have repeated the words found in the Lords prayer without any intention whatever of seeing to it that the Father’s will is done in their lives and their country and nation.
May God help us therefore that as we say the Lord’s Prayer, on a daily basis, we will endeavour to find new meaning and purpose for our lives.
About the Author: Mrs. Marilyn Hodge owns and operates the Wellness Centre in the Farrington, Anguilla. The Centre offers Counselling Services by Appointment Only and has now published Positive Living Volume 2. Contact information: 476-3517 or email: marilynb@anguillanet.com. www.facebook.com/axawellnesscentre
