What does it mean to pray, "Thy will be done"?

Then he very beautifully refers to his desire that they should pray for him, and the reason for it is very striking. Who is it that can ask that familiar favor, "I want an interest in your prayers"? The apostle says, "Pray for us; for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly." His desire was to glorify Christ. If some one says, "Will you pray for me?" might we not well ask, "Have you a good conscience? Are you willing in all things to live honestly before God? Is it your desire to live according to God's will; or, do you want by prayer to have God's will turned around to your will? The essence of all prayer is submission. "Thy will be done" precedes the petition for daily bread.

Would our loving Creator and Redeemer deliberately make it hard on us if we surrender our will to His? Of course not! As our perfect example, Jesus submitted to the Father when He said: "Father — not my will, but Yours, be done" (Luke 22:42). We are called to do likewise: "I beseech you — present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Rom. 12:1-2).

Firstly, the Apostle says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God.” Grace alone will lead to submission. The sense of the grace and goodness of God will give such confidence in God that the soul will gladly give up its own will and submit to God. Instead of seeking to be somebody and something in the world, the Christian will cheerfully accept the circumstances that God orders. The Lord Jesus is the perfect example of One whose confidence in God led Him to submit perfectly to God. In the presence of the most sorrowful circumstances, when rejected by the cities in which He had wrought His miracles of love, He said, “Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in Thy sight” (Matt. 11:26).

To have no will of our own is the only perfect liberty. It is the working of will in the trial that gives it its bitterness; God has to set Himself against any working of it in us, to smash it, for our blessing. Our wilfulness has increased the trial, but at last the will is broken, and we surrender to God. The instant we take God's part thus against ourselves, in submitting ourselves absolutely to Him, the sting is gone out of the trial. We are brought into the path of Christ, and there is the full comfort of the sympathy of Him who knew no will of His own. We could not have or expect to have His sympathy in wilfulness. We have been sanctified to the obedience of Christ. It is often a long and painful process in us to reduce us to it, but when once we are brought to submit to His yoke, the sense of crushing and bitterness is gone. It was the knowledge of the Father that He brought us into first, and the title we have thus to take all from His heart, that makes it possible and easy now to submit ourselves under His hand — "Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight."

While the Lord Jesus prayed for the removal of the cup of the anguish of being made a curse by God (and it was perfectly right that He should have a will desirous of avoiding this), yet He added, "not my will, but Yours, be done." Here is precious, perfect manhood, having and expressing His own Human will, yet fully submitting Himself rather to the will of the Father.

Hence quietness and contentment take the place of fretfulness and impatience. For though we know not what to pray for as we ought, yet we do know "that all things work together for good to them that love God." And the believer loves God. The very occasion of all his groanings is the presence of the Spirit crying, Abba, Father. The soul, then, whilst in heaviness because of temptation, of weakness, and of unsatisfied desire, is yet kept in joy. The power of God to work good is the practical solace of the heart that knows God as its eternal portion in Christ. Thus godliness with contentment becomes great gain (1 Tim. 6:6). The Blessed One Himself, amid the sore amazement of His matchless sorrow, could utter His request as to the God of His life: "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me;" yet He straightway adds, "Not my will, but Thine, be done" (Luke 22:42). So is it with the soul that, as led of the Spirit, is walking in His steps. The will of God is to such the measure of obedience and the rule of patience. Faith reposes in God, committing all to Him; knowing that He is not overcome of evil, but that His end is glory and rest. Joy thus fills the sufferer's prospect. Happiness is known in the soul under the quiet assurance that all that is suffered is but a process whereby Almighty power is working out in grace the counsels of the will of love.

This subjection is truly desirable. It saves us from much anxiety of heart and restlessness. When we walk in the habitual conviction that God is making "all things to work together for our good," the spirit is most wonderfully tranquillised. We shall never set about planning for ourselves if we believe that God is planning for us; we shall be satisfied to leave all to Him. But alas, how often is it otherwise with us. How often do we vainly imagine that we can manage matters better than the blessed God. We may not say so in so many words; yet we virtually feel and act as if it were so. The Lord grant to us a more subdued and confiding spirit. The supremacy of the will of God over that of the creature will characterise the millennial age; but the saint is called now to let the will of God rule him in all things.

God would have you absolutely without a will the moment you are in subjection you have the consciousness of being just where God would have you.

God would have you absolutely without a will. The moment you are in subjection, you have the consciousness of being just where God would have you.

Submission. O blessed soul, that could sacrifice his will, and go to heaven, having lost his will and made resignation of it to Christ! I would seek no more than that Christ were absolute King over my will, and that my will were a sufferer in all crosses, without meeting Christ with such a word, "Why is it thus?"