Q 124. What does the third petition mean?
A 124. “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” means:
Help us and all people to reject our own wills and to obey your will without any back talk. Your will alone is good.
Help us one and all to carry out the work we are called to, as willingly and faithfully as the angels in heaven.
Language about the “will of God” can be very confusing. This is due in part to the variety of ways that this language is used in Scripture, but also finds it’s puzzlement in how Christians use the term to talk about what is going on in their lives. We readily dismiss negative events in our lives, even those related to the presence and impact of sin, as being God’s will. A tragic death, a fatal illness, and even injustice that we experience in the world around us is all chalked up to and dismissed as “the will” of God.
Yet, even in that rather dispassionate response, there is something unsettling that stirs in us. The question of how a good God can allow for such evil arises. When we dismiss sin as the “will of God,” we even begin to walk the line of blaming God for sin and potentially see Him as the cause of it. Thoughts such as this are contrary to what we know about God; He cannot sin and is wholly separate from sin. How can these two things be reconciled?
There are really two sides of God’s will that Scripture reveals to us: His will of decree and His will of Desire. God’s will of decree has to do with His continual governing and provision of the entire universe. His divine sovereignty covers everything from the orbits of planets and galaxies to the number of hairs on your head and the color of your eyes. Most of all, God’s unthwartable will is the ultimate redemption and restoration of Creation and the annihilation of sin.
God’s Will of desire is what the Lord’s prayer is pointing toward. God’s will of desire has to do with what God wants for His people and for the world, but it is a will that can be disregarded by His rebellious creatures. This is where human freedom comes in. While it is God’s desire that everything on earth be as perfect as it is in heaven; perfect worship, perfect obedience, perfect service, perfect holiness. He has, however, instilled freedom in the human heart. It is this freedom that ultimately led to sin entering the world and it is this freedom that continues to allow God’s creatures to turn from Him and reject Him.
Ultimately, this is why we pray that God’s will would be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” As we have been talking about already, the Lord’s prayer is about teaching us to pray. Clearly, praying these exact words does not enact God’s will of desire here on earth instantly. If that were true, everything would be perfect once again. Instead, this once again reminds us of who we are praying to and what He desires for us.
First, by praying this we are reminded that it is indeed God’s will, not our own will, that we are to desire. For us, that also means that we are putting our own will aside. Scripture describes this as “dying” to ourselves. There are many examples of human desires and will taking center stage and God’s will being put aside. Whether it is that time when we littered while we were driving in the country or the concentration camps of the Nazis in World War 2, when human will is allowed to run free, it always runs to sin. Clearly, we need a Savior, and one of the results of God’s salvation is the changing of the heart; we desire that God’s will would be done, not our own.
For this to take place, a second thing needs to happen: we need to trust God’s will. It isn’t enough to just want God’s will to happen, we need to trust that how He is working and what He is doing is the right thing too. Often this is where Christians start to say things like “it’s God’s will.” Certainly, nothing in the world happens without God allowing it to happen. However, it is not God’s will that people would die, that people would abuse or kill, or that sin would continue to have all of the horrible impacts on the world that it does. In the midst of this, however, God is at work. As we desire His will over ours, and as we trust in Him, we begin to see things change in our lives. Our faith grows, our trust grows, and we look to Him in the good times and the bad, recognizing God’s faithfulness and His love, even in the midst of our pain.
Finally, as we desire God’s will and trust His will, we must also carry out His will. This is the ultimate end of transformation in our hearts; it overflows into and out of our lives. As we learn to pray and learn from this prayer, we begin to see things as God sees them, to feel about people the way God feels about them, and our hearts begin to beat in sync with His. In essence, God’s will of desire becomes the desire of our will! It is to that end, then, that we begin to desire that heaven would come to earth and we work to that end, spreading God’s love and working God’s will in the world around us.
