Who's will?


When I was a kid, I didn't like the word NO. I felt like my parents had this word perfected. When we were shopping, "No, you don't need that" or when I wanted to hang out with friends, "No, not this time" or with regard to chores, "No, you can until your chores are done" - ugh!


Can you relate? I thought my will was the right thing at all times. Boy, was I naive right? What did I know at that age!

When we discover a God who sees everything and yet fiercely loves us reorganizes our sense of will (if we allow it). If He is in charge and cares for us more than anyone, we can trust that His ideas are better - that His will for us is the very best.

If we could just submit right?

In Jesus's last hours before His death on the cross, He too had to submit to the will of God and suffer. This must have been so difficult - traumatic really.
Listen again to the writer of Hebrews (12:1-3 New English Translation):
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us, 2 keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set out for him he endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Think of him who endured such opposition against himself by sinners, so that you may not grow weary in your souls and give up.

May we affirm this daily: Not our will but God's will be done.

Pastor Ben

PS I read this devotional thought recently that is related to this today:

SOME day we shall understand that God has a reason in every NO which He speaks through the slow movement of life. “Somehow God makes up to us.” How often, when His people are worrying and perplexing themselves about their prayers not being answered, is God answering them in a far richer way! Glimpses of this we see occasionally, but the full revelation of it remains for the future.

Cowman, L. B. (1925). Streams in the Desert (p. 307). The Oriental Missionary Society.

PSS And this...
2 Peter 3:8-10 (New English Translation):
Now, dear friends, do not let this one thing escape your notice, that a single day is like a thousand years with the Lord and a thousand years are like a single day. The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

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