The Bible records a number of famous, memorable prayers—Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17 … David’s prayer of confession in Psalm 51 … Moses’ prayer for Israel in the wilderness in Exodus 32 … Hannah’s prayer at the pain of being childless in 1 Samuel 2 … Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple in 1 Kings 8 … Jonah’s prayer from inside the fish. The apostle Paul, often in the middle of one of his epistles, would stop and pray for those he was writing to—that they’d realize the possibilities Jesus’ death and resurrection had made available for them … that they’d discover the toughness and strength of spirit Jesus wants to bring to their lives … that they’d not settle for an inferior or sub-par version of their faith but become fully developed, full-grown, and mature. And these prayers take a number of different forms. There are petitionary prayers, urgent prayers, heartfelt prayers, theologically instructive prayers, and desperate prayers. The Bible is, in many ways, an instruction manual on how to pray.
But in the sample prayer we know as the Lord’s Prayer, we come across what I believe is the most dangerous prayer in the Bible. To many of us, the Lord’s Prayer is something we’ve committed to memory and can recite by heart. But Jesus didn’t give us something to memorize and mindlessly recite. He gave us something to direct and guide our praying—to inspire and inform the way communicate with God and, ultimately, the way we live. It’s the words found in Matthew 6:10: “Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This one sentence is a petition we often blow right past because we don’t think about what it is we’re praying. If we were to stop and mull it over and reflect on the words we’re praying, some of us would think twice.
When you lean in and truly run those words around in your mind, you realize what an incredibly dangerous prayer it is—risky … menacing … loaded with uncertainty and unpredictability. It ought to come with a warning label like they put on cigarettes: Praying this prayer can be hazardous to your health and incredibly disruptive to your life.
Here’s why it’s so dangerous: We believe God has a will for our life—an agenda that embodies and encompasses the longings and aspirations He has for us. But we also have a will that embodies and encompasses our longings and aspirations. And these two sets of longings and aspirations often don’t align. Many times, our will and God’s are in opposition … and when there’s a conflict, one must prevail and the other must yield. So—when we pray this prayer, we’re asking that God’s will prevail and our will, if necessary, be set aside. And that’s not something most of us find easy to do. When you’re standing beside the hospital bed of a loved one … when the company has announced layoffs and you know your job could be impacted—to pray “your will be done” is not an easy prayer to pray.
But Jesus taught us to pray that God’s will might be done on earth as it is in heaven. A question comes to mind: “Just how is God’s will done in heaven?” Some words that would apply are “instantaneously” … “completely” … “joyfully”. But in reality God’s will is rarely done on earth. Think about it—do you see the will of God being done more often than not? I certainly don’t! If there are more than seven billion people in the world, that means there are more than seven billion wills out there. And it appears some of those other seven billion wills are being done more frequently than God’s. In some ways, the prayer “Your will be done” is one of the most futile and hopeless prayers you can pray. For it doesn’t appear it gets answered very often.
To pray, “Your will be done” means giving up control and allowing His will to take precedence over ours. When there’s a clash of wills, only one can be done. Either God calls the shots or we do. Either He’s in control or we are. It’s not easy to pray that prayer because it means giving up control.
But, as the old saying goes, “Control is an illusion.” We greatly overestimate our ability to regulate situations and happenings—to govern outcomes and events. As a result a second, and perhaps more plausible, reason this is a hard prayer for us to pray is because we doubt whether God wants the best for us. We’re scared that if we give Him control, He’ll exploit the situation or mess it up somehow … or He’ll put something on us we really don’t want to have to deal with. When you boil it down, this is nothing more than uncertainty about His concern, personal attention, and love for us.
The question is not, “Is there a God?” Most everyone—even those who have little to do with organized religion—agree there’s some sort of force that oversees the universe. The more relevant question is, “What’s God like? Does He care about me? Does He even know who I am and that I exist?” These two questions come from very different places. The existence of God is a question of philosophy and worldview. But the question of His personal interest and care is an experiential one. It’s typically asked by those who’ve known deep pain and suffering. “If God cares, how could He let such-and-such happen? Where was He when my husband lost his job? Why didn’t He keep that drunk driver from getting behind the wheel of that car … or, these days, that gunman from entering that school?” These aren’t abstract questions about the philosophical underpinnings of the universe. These are real-life questions drawn from the domain of our personal experience. When you deal with the reality of injustice and suffering, your life experience can cause you to doubt the decency and goodness of God. And when that happens, it becomes really hard to pray that prayer.
Which, ultimately, should draw our attention back to the cross. For God answered the question of His personal interest and care almost 2000 years ago. The Romans crucified a man they thought to be a Jewish rabble-rouser. The religous powers-that-be considered Him a threat, so they recruited a traitor from within his circle to trap and betray him. Once arrested, He was tried, beaten, mocked, insulted, cursed, abused, slapped, scourged, and crowned with thorns. Eventually He was condemned to die. For six hours He hung on a cross—naked before the world, exposed to the elements, reviled by the crowd, and jeered by His enemies. At the end of that ordeal, He bowed his head and died.
After all that God asks, “Do you still wonder if I love you?” For us to struggle to answer that question is, at best, short-sighted and unmindful and, at worst, insulting and degrading. If Jesus’ death on the cross doesn’t make a difference, I doubt whether anything else He could do would.
Another reason it’s hard to pray “Your will be done” is because God’s will occasionally involves suffering and pain. Certainly that was the case for Jesus—in fact, it was so true for him that, hours before the maneuvering that led to his death, he prayed and asked his Heavenly Father to remove this cup from him. Some people see Jesus wavering and struggling to trust … wrestling with accepting God’s will. I don’t think that was the case, for no one was ever more committed to doing God’s will than Jesus. He didn’t pray in this fashion because He wished to be released from the will of God. He prayed because he knew how much it was going to cost him and, while he was willing to pay the price, in seeing the horror, ugliness, and unpleasantness involved, he asked if it there might be some other way. Jesus is Exhibit A of what it costs to pray, “Your will be done.”
If Jesus struggled with availing himself to the will of God—if he recoiled when he sensed how difficult it was going to be—I guess we shouldn’t be surprised if we periodically experience the same. If it was difficult for Him to pray, “Your will be done,” is it going to be any easier for us? I doubt it! But at the end of the day, Jesus didn’t question the love of His Heavenly Father and chose to embrace God’s will in spite of the dark and depraved nature of the situation.
But there’s an even more basic reason why it’s hard for us to pray this prayer. It has to do with the fact this prayer challenges the status quo. When we pray these words, we’re typically praying against the way things currently are.
As I mentioned, God’s will is seldom done on the earth. Many things take place that obviously don’t align with His will—children dying of preventable disease, racial prejudice, ethnic hatred, human trafficking, and corruption in high places to name a few. Sometimes it seems like God’s gone to sleep and Satan has taken over. But here’s the deal: God doesn’t accept the status quo! He doesn’t accept Satan’s seizure and exploitation of His rightful place in the world. To pray, “Your will be done” is to follow God in opposing the status quo. It’s a prayer that goes against the grain. In a world where God’s will is not done, to pray that God’s will will be done is “fightin’ words”. This prayer stands in opposition to everything that’s evil and wrong in the world.
All too often when we pray, “Your will be done,” we do it with an air of resignation: “O God, since I’m helpless to stem the tide of events, may Your will be done.” We use it as an excuse not to become outraged at the sin and suffering all around us. But if God doesn’t accept the status quo, neither should we! To pray, “Your will be done” is, in many ways, an act of God-ordained rebellion! It’s not a prayer for the weak or the timid. It’s a prayer for believers who look at the devastation around them and say, “I’m not going to settle for this anymore. I’m going to invest and spend my one and only life in trying to do something about what’s going on.” It’s a prayer that should lead to action.
When we see injustice being done, we cannot blithely pray, “Your will be done” and walk away, leaving it to someone else to address the situation. If we really mean, “Your will be done,” we must jump in and do what we can to bring about change. Granted—it’s an overwhelming task. And some of us think, because society’s turning of a blind eye and a deaf ear to God’s will is so excessive and rampant, that the words “Your will be done” can become an excuse to shut down and disengage. We say, “I can’t solve the problem” and excuse ourselves from responding.
Here’s a principle we need to adopt: Do for one what we wish we could do for everyone. In spite of the fact there are problems we can’t solve and issues we’ll never be able to fully address, we’re responsible to do what we can for someone somewhere. We can’t crawl into the hole of “I-can’t-solve-the-problem-so-I’m-just-going-to-opt-out-and-detach”. We’re to do for one what we wish we could do for everyone. If all of us that claim to be Christ-followers lived by that guideline, our world might look a little bit more like heaven and a little less like hell.
Why is this little prayer is such a difficult and dangerous one? It’s dangerous, first, because it means we’ll have to give up control. If we pray this prayer, we’ll be called to, at times, lay aside our will and let go of some things that we’ve come to love, trust, and depend on. It’s dangerous, also, because some of us doubt whether God truly cares for us. We know He exists and is out there somewhere, but we question whether He’s personal or capable of having any meaningful involvement in our life. We think of him as a “cosmic force” and not a “personal being”. It’s dangerous because availing ourselves to God’s will in all likelihood involve pain and suffering—certainly it did for Jesus—and we much prefer comfort and ease to pain and suffering. And … it’s dangerous because God’s will is so often not done in this world, which means that to pray this prayer is to commit ourselves to being a part of the solution—something that will undoubtedly make our lives considerably more complicated and chaotic. And yet—Jesus told us to pray this way. When He instructed and taught His disciples how to pray, this little phrase was included as one of the foundational ingredients.
C.S. Lewis—author, theologian, and one of the great Christians minds of the last hundred years—said there are two, and only two, kinds of people in the world: Those who say to God, “Your will be done” and those to whom God says in the end, “Your will be done.” Which kind are you? A person who, with a spirit of fatalism and resentment, steps back from addressing the world’s ills because we want a comfortable, easy life? Or are we people who choose to invest our lives in seeing His will done on earth as it is in heaven? To pray this dangerous prayer compels us to be part of the group that trusts in God’s decency and goodness and embraces periodic difficulty instead of being part of the group that looks for a life of ease and seeks the path of least resistance.