Thy Will Be Done

“May your will be done.” Matthew 26:42

This monumental statement is a declaration, not a resignation! It is an earnest desire, not a reluctant acceptance. We will never understand Jesus if we do not understand this prayer.

Henry Drummond points out that when we join Jesus in his famous prayer: “Thy will be done,” it’s usually offered in the spirit of something that has to be endured, a last-ditch resignation that God isn’t going to do what we really want Him to do so we might as well give up: “Well, we’ve exhausted every other alternative. I guess we’ll just have to rely on God’s will.” With a little sigh and throwing up our hands, we mumble this magnificently powerful prayer, “Thy will be done,” as if we were repeating a cliché, “There’s no use in crying over spilled milk.”

In this we might be repeating the words of Jesus, but we are entirely missing his spirit. Lent is about recapturing a God-centered focus, taking time away from the world to have a more heavenly motivation.