By David Faust
According to legal experts, most American adults do not have a written will. A Gallup Poll found only 42 percent of us have a will, and the website Caring.com places the number even lower (32 percent). However, if you ask me, “How many people have a will?” I would answer, “All of us!”
No, we all haven’t given legal instructions about what to do with our property after we die. But in another sense, having a will is part of being human. God created us in his image with the capacity to choose, make decisions, and pursue our desires and intentions, expressing agreement or refusal.
We all have a will. The question is, How will we use it?
Battles of the Will
If you are married, you understand battles of the will. So do parents of a strong-willed child. At times my dog (Muffin, a long-haired Chihuahua) tries to assert her will. Wills clash wherever different opinions exist. Coworkers and bosses clash on the job. (In many states, employment agreements are “at will.”)
But why would anyone engage in a battle of the wills with the Maker of heaven and earth? In Romans 7, the apostle Paul described his own internal struggle. He wanted to do right, but he kept doing wrong. He concluded the only way to win this battle is to surrender to God’s grace, which assures us, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1, New International Version).
The decision to trust, love, and follow Jesus requires an act of the will. “Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life” (Revelation 22:17).
Time to Surrender
Jesus said to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done” (Matthew 6:10). Bible commentators consider these words an example of Hebrew parallelism, a poetic device that balances or repeats related ideas. God’s kingdom comes when his will is done. The kingdom exists where his royal authority is affirmed.
In some church traditions, a worship leader introduces the Lord’s Prayer by saying, “We are bold to pray . . . .” Frederick Buechner wrote:
The word bold is worth thinking about. We do well not to pray the prayer lightly. It takes guts to pray it at all. We can pray it in the unthinking and perfunctory way we usually do only by disregarding what we are saying. “Thy will be done” . . . is the climax of the first half of the prayer. We are asking God to be God. We are asking God to do not what we want, but what God wants. . . . Boldness indeed. To speak those words is to invite the tiger out of the cage, to unleash a power that makes atomic power look like a warm breeze.
N. T. Wright observes, “Saying ‘our Father’ isn’t just the boldness, the sheer cheek, of walking into the presence of the living and almighty God and saying ‘Hi, Dad.’ It is the boldness, the sheer total risk, of saying quietly, ‘Please may I, too, be considered an apprentice son.’ It means signing on for the kingdom of God.” The hymnwriter prayed, “Take my will and make it Thine. It shall be no longer mine. Take my heart—it is Thine own. It shall be Thy royal throne.”
And notice: the prayer says, “your will be done”—not just pondered, contemplated, discussed, or debated, but put into action. When God gives a directive like “Let there be light,” nature cooperates. If he tells a heavenly servant like Gabriel to deliver a message, the angel obeys. Once God’s intentions are clear, obedience should be immediate—“on earth as it is in heaven.”
Discipleship requires surrender—ceasing our battle of the wills and voluntarily submitting ourselves to the Lord.
Jesus says, “Follow me.” A disciple says, “I will.”
Next Week: “Our Daily Bread”
David Faust serves as contributing editor of Christian Standard and senior associate minister with East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is the author of 1 & 2 Thessalonians: Unquenchable Faith.
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