Our Lord did not indulge in empty dreaming. When He said, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven,” He did not envisage that the will of His Father would or could be done in the hearts and lives of those who rejected His authority.
Yet, here, in this simple request, the thought is, “Heavenly Father, may Your will be done in this bit of earth, in me here and now, just as it will be done someday on this earth.” In fact, we find that those great saints of God who have learned to know and love Him best, not only come to the place where they did the will of God but actually enjoyed the will of God. Likewise in my heart, if God’s kingdom on earth is there, doing the will of God should be a delight and not a drudgery. For it is in doing the will of God and responding to it positively that heaven actually does descent to this fragment of earth and becomes a reality within.
To love Him is to obey Him. To obey Him is to do His will. To do His will is to have a bit of heaven on earth!
God’s will carries within it all that has been set in motion for our welfare and benefit. He has our best interests at heart. So to do His will is really to do ourselves as well as Him a great favour.
Perhaps by this time, we may ask, “How does one reach the place where he really wants to do God’s will and enjoy it?”
It is the Spirit of God, at work in our wills, minds and emotions, who produces there both an increasing desire to obey and an enlarged power to obey.
As we deliberately respond to the directions and instructions that come to us from God’s own Spirit, speaking through His Word, we will find the energy and strength and courage to do what He asks of us. This in essence is precisely what Christ had in mind when He instructed His disciples to pray, “Thy will be done in earth [in me] as it is in heaven.”
An excerpt from A Layman Looks at the Lord’s Prayer by W. Phillip Keller
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