Article by Dr. Les Hollon, Pastor, Trinity Baptist Church

 

God is knowable and His ways are doable.  Living in the light of these two truths guides us into living the most exciting life possible.  We learn God’s will by trusting God and acting on what we learn through Him.  Then we are positioned to know the part of God’s will that had been previously unclear to us.

 

Growing up, I was told that the most exciting place to live was in the center of God’s will.  This advise got hold of me as a value to reassure and a truth to pursue.

 

Like many of you, I have entrusted myself in a relationship with God that shapes:

 

1) My mind in the quest to understand God’s will;

2) My heart to desire God’s will;

3) My body to enact what I know of God’s will;

4) My spirit to be empowered by God’s will. 

 

Seeking to know and do God’s will is always humbling because God’s ways and purposes are always bigger than we can ever fully comprehend.  The gap between what we believe to be God’s will and the proven results of our belief are we live much of our lives.

 

Jesus’ Example from Matthew 26: 36-46

The compelling drama of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane grabs us by the collar to say “pay attention.”  Doing the will of God was not easy for even the Son of God.  Look at the following passages from Matthew 26:

 

:36-38  The word Gethesemane derives from “an olive press” and many olive trees grew in this garden where Jesus frequently prayed.  From His pressing life circumstances He prayed drops of blood.  He did not want to go through this alone, so He asked His inner circle to join Him.  God will not leave us alone in our troubles He will reveal His will as our way forward.

 

:39  Jesus first named what He wanted to happen.  It is important for us to be clear about our hoped for outcomes, and then like Jesus, place those hopes into God’s caring hands.

 

:40-41  Jesus’ prayer partners were so anxious and sad that they fell asleep instead of staying awake to pray for Jesus.  Jesus responded with these telling words, “the spirit is wiling but the flesh is weak.”  Full commitment of ourselves is required when what needs to be done requires our absolute dependence on God.  Keeping our bodies conditioned is a key to doing God’s best from our lives.

 

:42  Jesus’ second prayer focused on aligning himself to God’s will.  Our willingness “to let go and let God” is essential.  We may trust God with our reluctant willingness to do what is best.

 

:43-46  Aligning our will to God’s will may come in stages.  Jesus again checked on His prayer partners and saw that they were not willing to let go of their smaller purposes in order to accomplish God’s larger purposes.  The gap caused them to grieve and sleep.  After Jesus’ returned to pray a third time, He was good to go.  The cup of suffering and death was the very cup he willingly endured by His crucifixion and resurrection.  Through His willingness we can willingly choose to be saved from our own sin.

 

St. Francis Prayer on Doing God’s Will

Most of God’s will is not a mystery.  We may want to stiff-arm God’s will because we do not like it, and therefore say it is a mystery.  But most of God’s will is clearly known to us.  This is the secret to St. Frances’ famous prayer, “Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace.”  This simple and profound man, who lived from 1181-1226, prayed in a way that calls all of us to live by doing God’s will daily:

 

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.  O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.  For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

 

God’s best is God’s will and may we do God’s will so everyone may live from God’s best.

 

Pastor Les Hollon

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

-John 1:1-5 (NIV)

 

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. ”Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”

He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.

Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

-Matthew 26:36-46 (NIV)

 

This article was written by Les Hollon, Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church.  For more information about God and your place in His world, contact Dr. Hollon, click over to Trinity Baptist Church.

 

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