Jesus said to his disciples, “Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one,” (Matthew 6:9-13, NIV).
“Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Your will be done…Is there anything more difficult than thwarting our own will, or putting the will of another ahead of ours? In twelve-programs the third step is: [We have] Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. When I pray the third step, I simply say, “I give you my life and my will.” I do this every night before I go to sleep; I pray the Lord’s Prayer, the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God the Father, have mercy on me a sinner), and the first three steps of the twelve steps. In the space of a few minutes, I say to God that I want God’s will to be done, and on the best of days, I give God my will, and then take it back again shortly afterwards. What is the will of God? To love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself. That is the will of God – that we love, and as Thomas Aquinas said, to love means to will the good of the other.
Willing the good of the other is incredibly disruptive to my life, especially if the others I am willing the good to are not willing the good of me, like my children. They don’t wish me ill (though I am the worst father in the world, according to at least two of them), but they do demand a lot. Usually, they wait until I sit down, at which point they will ask me for something to eat or drink, or to go play with them in the backyard. I usually try to accommodate them, though not as quickly as they would like. I don’t want to spoil them, but I do want to model what it means to help others. It’s been slow to stick…when asked to put their candy wrappers in the trash, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth, which only increases if we threaten to remove candy from the house. But it’s starting to work too…they both want to help unload/load the dishwasher, sweep the floor, and wash/dry clothes.
Willing the good of the other takes practice; it’s not something that will happen all at once. There will never be a time we don’t need Jesus – we will never become perfect at being selfless. But we can definitely improve from where we are. When I pray the Lord’s Prayer, I want to be genuine – I want to mean it when I say, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s will in heaven is that we willingly and lovingly follow the first two commandments, that when everyone is seeking the good of the other—when everyone is loving one another—then no one is left out. But every day, there is a significant gulf between praying the words and living the words, and it is this gulf that reinforces my need for Christ and his grace.
We are blessed (or cursed, depending on your view) to be able to hold opposing viewpoints in our minds at the same time. Yes, I pray and want to do God’s will, but I do not do God’s will, and because of this, I need God’s grace, provided through the love of God’s son, Jesus. It’s as Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “I do not do the good I will, but I do the very thing I hate.” Recognizing our sin is the first step to working through it. We can’t help everyone, though we may will the good of everyone we see, we cannot make it a reality. But we can pray for everyone we see, recognizing that Christ dwells within all people, and that when we serve one another, we are serving Christ.
The Rev. Jason Shelby
Rector
jason.shelby@stfrancispalosverdes.org