God's Will

I want to do this series on “God’s will”, and specifically in reference to how we pray. The term God’s will, or our praying that God’s will be done is used often in the midst of prayer, especially Christian prayers. Somehow, praying God’s will makes us more spiritual. When we pray His will be done we believe we are accepting whatever God chooses to do in a given situation. We feel really pious and spiritual because however the situation turns out we have “accepted His will”. Others then respond, “Yes, may God’s will be done.” Our spiritual work is done so we can go home from our prayer time or prayer meeting and pay little if any attention to what we prayed. Praying God’s will gets us off the hook of ever having to pray again or to pray with any type of fervency. (Yes, there are those who do pray with passion when they pray God’s will, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.)

Praying "God’s will" may be religious, and make us feel good, but is that what Jesus taught?

more on that next.