Have you ever driven
yourself crazy asking "what is the God’s will for me?" What does God want me to do with the life he
gave me? Did you walk away a bit
disillusioned with no clear distinct answer?
Or at some point, as is the case with most ministers, did you settle
into the notion that you are definitely called to a specific task that's going
to take considerable preparation and therefore set out on that journey? Or did you just figure you would do what you
want, be a good person, a good citizen of a Christian nation, and do good and
not trouble yourself with the will of a God who's not involved in our lives
until we're standing before him on judgement day?
God’s will—what is
it? That is a big question and I would
just as soon answer it with I haven’t got a clue. There have been times when I thought I knew
what the Trinity’s will for me was. I
was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing, things were
going good and then out of left field comes a zinger that changes everything.
I find that the topic
of God’s will gets highly speculative when we deal with it as some sort of
specific step-by-step plan that God has for our lives that if we figure it out
and follow it we will have a most wonderful life. I am a bit suspicious of that way of looking
at the Trinity's will mostly because it sounds more like ancient pagan notions
of fate rather than anything biblical.
If we take the Bible
in its entirety we find that God does have a grand scheme plan for history that
includes my life that ultimately ends with our becoming like Christ Jesus,
united to him by his incarnation and by the fellowship of the Holy Spirit we
share in his relationship with the Father.
The specific step-by-steps of that plan are not for us to know though we
can and do get hunches of it from time to time.
What is most important
for us is that we simply be God’s people. We be the children of God who reflect his
image in the creation. The Trinity's
will is more about who we are and how we live than about specifics that have to
happen. We are Jesus’ disciples, beloved
children of the Father just as he is, and it is the Trinity's will that we
increasingly grow up into him.
Let me say a little
more about this, the Trinity does have a specific plan for history. It is that the Good News of Salvation in
Christ is to go out into all the world until the Father calls things to an end
with Jesus' return, and then the resurrection of the dead, the final judgement,
and God’s establishing his kingdom where we serve and worship God freed of sin,
death, and evil.
Within that plan the
Trinity calls us to specific tasks.
Sometimes we seem to have no doubt as to this calling. Other times, we’re cluelessly in the right
place at the right time. It can even be
we’re doing everything we can to work against God and the call, but God still
works it into his will for us. The called ones are who we are. We bear the task of proclaiming the Lordship
of Jesus Christ and living under his commandment to love one another so that we
in our life together are living proof of what is to come. Our individual tasks in this calling are
varied yet there is one calling, one invitation, common to us all and it is
that we all know salvation in Jesus Christ, that we all come to know and share
in the steadfast love and faithfulness of God the Father as Jesus the Son
himself does in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Salvation is an
actuality in our lives now due to Jesus' presence in our lives changing us,
healing us, transforming us through the work of the Holy Spirit from the sin
and death of our broken humanity to be more and more like him. Salvation is that in Jesus Christ God did,
is, and will reconcile the world to himself and has made it possible for us to
have an intimate and being-changing relationship with God the Father through
Jesus the Son in the Holy Spirit. The
Trinity’s will for us each and us together is that we all be saved, that we all
be in this transforming relationship with him.
So, salvation essentially is that the Trinity in through, and as Jesus
Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit has brought us into himself, into this
new form of human being the Bible calls “in Christ” and “in him” God is
transforming us to become the image of Christ in living union with him.
Therefore, I conclude,
that ultimately the Trinity’s will is that we all become like Christ Jesus,
which is that we be humans who are indwelt by God partaking of his nature. It is our task, our calling, to let that
happen. The Trinity’s will is that we
become like Jesus Christ.
St. Athanasius of
Alexandria one of the key theologians behind the Nicene Creed said, “He became
what we are so that he might make us what he is.” St. Irenaeus of Lyons the dominant theologian
of the 3rd Century in his work “Against Heresies” wrote: “our Lord
Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that
He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.” John Calvin writes; “This is the wondrous exchange made by
his boundless goodness. Having become with us the Son of Man, he has made us
with himself sons of God.”
Having set that stage I must go on to say
that when we are talking about the Trinity’s will and how it applies to our
lives we are really talking about a struggle of wills—the Trinity’s will with
our own. To be like Jesus is to have two
wills—the will of the Trinity and a human will.
Jesus kept his fallen human will
fully in line with the will of the Father and that is our goal. There is one problem though, our wills are
corrupted, bent by sin to be self-oriented rather than God-oriented.
This problem is complicated by the harsh
reality that there is nothing that we can do to change our wills outside of
praying. Indeed, Jesus himself prayed
ceaselessly. Prayer is the one thing
necessary that we do in the pursuit of knowing and living the Trinity's will
for us. In prayer is where our human
spirit and will unite with the Holy Spirit so that the Trinity’s will for us to
become the image of Christ can be done here on earth as it is in heaven. God’s will for each of us is that we be
united with Christ so that we can become like Christ and prayer is the primary
setting for where this happens. It is
when we are in prayer, sitting at Jesus’ feet in the presence of the Holy
Spirit, that God’s kingdom begins to come “to
me”.
Now, if prayer is the
place where the Trinity works most powerfully in us, then the prayer that Jesus
taught his disciples to pray is of utmost importance. The purpose of the Lord’s Prayer as best as I
can determine it is to make us like Christ.
Praying the Lord’s Prayer continually from the heart opens us up so that
the transforming power of God in the Holy Spirit can work mightily in
us---mightily! Praying the Lord’s Prayer
will help us to know God as Jesus does, as loving Father. Being in that relationship is where we are
saved.
Praying this Prayer
will open us up to God’s kingdom coming into us now and God’s will being worked
in and through us. To ask for our daily
bread is to increase our faith in God’s provision for our needs and make us
less reliant on material things and our own sufficiency. To ask God to forgive our debts as we forgive
our debtors forces us to accept our own sinfulness as well as to bear the cross
of being forgiving. Praying for God not
to lead us into times of trial where we are tempted to deny Christ and rather
deliver us from the evil one makes us aware that God does not tempt us to sin
and when we feel temptation we know to resist it and God will deliver us from
Satan.
The Trinity calls each
of us to be continuously in prayer. Paul
says “Pray without ceasing.” Yet, a
constant state of prayer is not something that we can achieve on our own. It is a gift from the Trinity that feels like
a constant awareness of God’s presence in our lives. Praying the Lord’s Prayer constantly
throughout the day when our minds would otherwise be occupied by worry and what
not is particularly rewarding. In time
we find ourselves changing, transforming in our goals and desires for
life. We find ourselves hungering and
thirsting more for the presence of the Lord in our lives. We find ourselves “wanting to want to love
God” as St. Teresa of Avila once said.
The discipline of prayer actually changes the way the brain chemically
works. It forges new neural pathways. If you know anything about the brain
chemistry of addiction, prayer is the only way around the “stinking thinking”
that feeds addiction.
When Jesus’ disciple’s asked him to teach them how to pray as John the Baptist taught his disciples they were wanting just this—a disciplined way of praying that would draw them closer to the Father and change them. So, Jesus taught them this prayer. Therefore, my friends, pray it. Pray it ceaselessly and from the heart and you will find yourselves changed. Amen.
When Jesus’ disciple’s asked him to teach them how to pray as John the Baptist taught his disciples they were wanting just this—a disciplined way of praying that would draw them closer to the Father and change them. So, Jesus taught them this prayer. Therefore, my friends, pray it. Pray it ceaselessly and from the heart and you will find yourselves changed. Amen.
