Not My Will
When Christians pray, they pray that God's will be done. It is difficult to understand how this can be so, or not so.
Think about it: If He is God, then by definition, how can His will not be done? It is only if we assume that the Christian God is somehow able to keep His will in abeyance for certain things that a prayer can contain 'Thy will be done' as a meaningful statement, one would think. And yet, it is possible that the phrase has some other intent: perhaps Christians should think of it as a deliberate surrender of their own wills - "Thy will be done," rather than, "Me, me, me!"
It is also possible that it is a statement of fact - which is fine, except when this might be fatalism, the view that God's will is inevitable and all we can do is bow. But fatalism, in its own way, is a form of arrogance; it is the stance before God that since He is all-powerful, we have no choice but to accept what happens. It is equivalent to saying, "Yeah, you have out-bullied me, I have not enough power to resist you, so I am surrendering."
And so Christians pray for this and that and the other, for triumph in sports, for more money, for great things and small. And sometimes they forget that the leader of the pack, the Teacher himself said, "Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done." And other Christians pray to be belittled and humbled and to be aware of how small and tiny and weak they are. They forget that their Creator made all things well, and that the lesser things of the world are sometimes made in victorious opposition to the greater things. To be humble is to be aware that the will that sustains the universe is inviolable, yet merciful; it is infinite, and yet personal; it is all things it wants to be, and chooses not to be other things; and it is beyond the mind of man.
Like children, we often ask for small things - a million dollars, a cure for cancer. It is nothing to the Will of the Highest to give a billion dollars, or a billion stars. The critic says then, "Why doesn't He?" The answer is beyond us. Perhaps it is because the essence of humanity is corrupted at some threshold of power and wealth, perhaps not. Perhaps when all of us 'have stars at elbow and foot', stars become worthless; when all have a billion dollars, inflation is intolerable. And perhaps we shall never ever understand in its entirety while we remain as we are, for to understand at that level might not be one of our functions in this life.
In the end, what is worth anything is that we have tried our best to learn the infinite rulebook; that we have played the game as best as we have worked to (and are allowed to) understand it; and that we have acknowledged the primacy of the Arbiter in all things. To be content - perhaps, that is everything.
Think about it: If He is God, then by definition, how can His will not be done? It is only if we assume that the Christian God is somehow able to keep His will in abeyance for certain things that a prayer can contain 'Thy will be done' as a meaningful statement, one would think. And yet, it is possible that the phrase has some other intent: perhaps Christians should think of it as a deliberate surrender of their own wills - "Thy will be done," rather than, "Me, me, me!"
It is also possible that it is a statement of fact - which is fine, except when this might be fatalism, the view that God's will is inevitable and all we can do is bow. But fatalism, in its own way, is a form of arrogance; it is the stance before God that since He is all-powerful, we have no choice but to accept what happens. It is equivalent to saying, "Yeah, you have out-bullied me, I have not enough power to resist you, so I am surrendering."
And so Christians pray for this and that and the other, for triumph in sports, for more money, for great things and small. And sometimes they forget that the leader of the pack, the Teacher himself said, "Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done." And other Christians pray to be belittled and humbled and to be aware of how small and tiny and weak they are. They forget that their Creator made all things well, and that the lesser things of the world are sometimes made in victorious opposition to the greater things. To be humble is to be aware that the will that sustains the universe is inviolable, yet merciful; it is infinite, and yet personal; it is all things it wants to be, and chooses not to be other things; and it is beyond the mind of man.
Like children, we often ask for small things - a million dollars, a cure for cancer. It is nothing to the Will of the Highest to give a billion dollars, or a billion stars. The critic says then, "Why doesn't He?" The answer is beyond us. Perhaps it is because the essence of humanity is corrupted at some threshold of power and wealth, perhaps not. Perhaps when all of us 'have stars at elbow and foot', stars become worthless; when all have a billion dollars, inflation is intolerable. And perhaps we shall never ever understand in its entirety while we remain as we are, for to understand at that level might not be one of our functions in this life.
In the end, what is worth anything is that we have tried our best to learn the infinite rulebook; that we have played the game as best as we have worked to (and are allowed to) understand it; and that we have acknowledged the primacy of the Arbiter in all things. To be content - perhaps, that is everything.
Labels: Christianity, Games, God, Mysteries, Prayer
etched with acid at 5:31:00 pm
3 Comments:
I always see "Thy Will be done" as a sort of reminder and an expression of "your will be done, and please, no other" (which is, as you say, redundant).
Is it not also perhaps submission, and an acknowledgement?
It is of course, in some senses, all three - it is hard for us to surrender our own pretensions to will and power, true, but it can be all three and many more. Sometimes it is beyond us to do what is right except insofar as we understand it. And so it goes...
Come to think of it, the Lord's Prayer is extremely meaningful and all encompassing. Within 11 lines, it teaches us how and what to pray for - praise, purpose, provision, pardon, protection and partnership.
As for 'thy will be done', there can another perspective. I.e., "let me be part of and in the centre of God's will".
I guess, not many of us require a billion dollars to do His will or to fulfil our purposes, and thus we don't get it.
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