Jesus taught His disciples to pray ‘Your will be done’ (Matthew 6:10).
What is meant by God’s will and how does His will impact our praying?
If you are confused about the will of God, you are not alone. One reason for the confusion is that we speak of God’s will in three different ways. Distinguishing between them will help to clear the confusion and enable us to pray “Your will be done,” with greater meaning and understanding.
> God’s Hidden Will
Deuteronomy 29:29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
What is God’s hidden will? The Bible speaks about, “the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). Everything that happens is woven into the purpose of God and nothing that happens is outside of His will. God works all things according to the counsel of His will.
God is sovereign, so His plans always prevail. We see this supremely at the cross. Satan stirred up the events that led to the crucifixion of Jesus. But through this, God accomplished His plan to redeem the world.
This is a wonderful comfort to Christian believers. Nothing in your life is outside of God’s purpose or beyond God’s control. Now, exactly how the events of our lives are woven into the Father’s plan, we may not always be able to see or understand. These things are hidden and belong to the Lord. They are a mystery to us, and we often find ourselves asking why. Why did You allow this in my life Lord? Why did You save her and not him? What good can possibly come from this pandemic? These are all questions about God’s hidden will.
How should we respond to God’s hidden will? We must trust God in what He has chosen not to reveal to us. Eventually, in God’s time, all that is hidden will be revealed. Until then, we walk by faith and not by sight.
So, when you are faced with the mystery of what you don’t understand, simply pray: ‘Lord, strengthen my faith so that Your will may be done.’
> God’s Revealed Will
God’s revealed will is found in the Scriptures. The will of God for us today is revealed very clearly in these statements by Jesus:
Mark 12:29–31 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Matthew 28:1-20 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
The will of God for us today includes the Ten Commandments. God’s will is that you should not commit adultery even in your heart. God’s will is that you should be content. God’s will is that you should tell the truth. God’s will is that you should have no other gods before Him.
Here is a marvellous snapshot of God’s will from the Apostle Paul:
1 Thessalonians 5:15–18 “Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Now of course God’s revealed will is not limited to verses that use the words ‘God’s will.’ All that God has called us to in Scripture is His will for us. God’s revealed will should always be our first concern, because God will hold us accountable for our response to what He has revealed (Romans 14:12).
But God will not hold us accountable for what He has kept hidden. This is good news, especially if you have been worried that you might have ‘missed God’s will’ because of a bad decision in your life.
How should we respond to God’s revealed will? We must obey God in what He has revealed.
1 John 2:17 “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”
So, here’s how you pray when God’s revealed will and your desires pull in different directions: ‘Lord, give me strength to obey, so that Your will may be done.’
> God’s Discerned Will
Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
There is a will of God that can be discerned. This is neither hidden nor revealed, but somewhere in between.
All of us make life-changing decisions and we wrestle with life-changing questions: What college should I attend? Where should I live? Should I marry and if so, who? What work should I pursue? What money should I spend, what should I save, and what should I give? What Church should I join? What responsibility should I take on my shoulders?
Every time you come to a fork in the road of your life, you will find yourself asking, “What is God’s will?” But there isn’t a verse in the Bible that answers any of these specific questions. God’s specific will in these areas has not been revealed, but the will of God in these areas is not secret or unknowable either. What is good, acceptable, and perfect can be ‘discerned.’
Notice that we discern the will of God by ‘testing.’ This testing involves our experience, our ability and capacity, the wisdom of others, open doors of opportunity, circumstances, the desires of our heart, etc.
We do not come to what God has revealed in Scripture and say, ‘Well let’s test this: What do other people think? Where does this fit with my experience?’ We open the Bible to see what God has revealed and then we rule out what God forbids, and we rule in what God commands. But where God has not spoken specifically, we must discern by testing, and so find the path of wisdom.
How should we respond to God’s discerned will?
We cannot test what God has not revealed; we must not test what God has clearly revealed; but we should always test what God has called us to discern. So, here’s how you pray when you are faced with a major decision: ‘Lord, help me to discern your will in this matter.’
Therefore, if we want to learn how to truly pray ‘Your will be done, Lord’ than we need to distinguish between the three spheres of God’s will because we are called to respond to each of them in a distinct and different way.
With God’s hidden will, we cannot know, and we must respond to the mysteries of life with faith. With God’s revealed will we can know for sure, and in this we must obey. With God’s discerned will, we can test and by testing we can seek and find the path of wisdom.
Is God’s will fixed – or can we change God’s mind?
No serious discussion about praying ‘Your will be done’ can exclude the above question – no matter how challenging it may be to answer. In simple terms, the answer is ‘yes and no.’ Yes, God’s will is fixed in the sense that He knows everything that is going to happen for all of us – every day of our lives. The technical term for this is ‘omniscience’ which means God is ‘all-knowing.’ However, it is also true that God’s will is often impacted by our actions and inaction.
The Bible is a little confusing here in that it clearly states that God does not change His mind. (Number 23:19). However, in other places we have examples where God did change His mind in response to the actions of His people (Exodus 32:14; Amos 7:3,6). This is where people can become confused because they view this like the actions of a human being. But because God is God, then even the times He may change His mind in response to our actions, or faith or prayer, He always knew that would happen and therefore that was always part of His hidden will. So, with God, a change of mind is not a change of will because God’s will is all-encompassing and complete.
However, from our perspective, we most certainly should expect that there may be times when we move the heart of God to change something He may have revealed beforehand, knowing that even that change, is still part of His will.
So, let me finish with this simple summary statement:
When we pray ‘Your will be done,’ we are asking for faith in what God has kept hidden, obedience in what God has revealed, and wisdom in what God has called us to discern.