Matthew 6:10 “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

“Your will be done” is an easy thing to say. The words are simple–no running to the dictionary to discover what they mean. They are short words–just one syllable each. These are easy words to pronounce. They are all words we could say and use by the time we began grade school. But together, as a sentence, these words form one of our hardest prayers.

This is a hard prayer because it is hard to want what these words say. “Oh,” we might think, “This isn’t so hard. What Christian doesn’t want what God wants to happen? Love your neighbor and love the Lord with all your heart, feed the poor and spread the good news–who doesn’t want that to happen?” But it isn’t as easy or simple as that.

It’s no secret to you that the people who live in this world have been corrupted by sin–every one of them. You and I have it too. God has never stopped loving us after we became sinners. But because he loves us, he wants, he wills, that there would be consequences for our sins. He knows that sin always hurts us. It messes with our minds and gives us a false view of reality. It is poison to the love that should live in our hearts. It suffocates faith and destroys our relationship with him. It makes us sullen and selfish and sad, and frankly we become generally unpleasant people to be around.

That’s why God created pain. He wanted us to realize that sin is bad for us. He has attached pain to practically every sin there is, even the little ones. It is his will. Sometimes the connection is obvious. For example, he wants us to take care of our bodies and practice a little self-control. It is not to satisfy our every desire. Too much alcohol or food, and in the short term we may suffer from a monster headache, or a stomach ache. Keep it up day after day, and the consequences dial the pain way up: liver disease, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, dementia, arthritic joints. God made it to work that way. It is his will.

But I don’t want to give the impression that the difficulty is the main feature of this prayer. This is a beneficial way for God’s people to pray. More than that, I will go so far as to say that “Your will be done” can be considered our best prayer.

The Greeks had an old saying: “Know thyself.” “To your own self be true.” But do we really understand what makes us tick, why we do what we do? David prays in the psalms, “Who can discern his errors?” Paul confesses in Romans 7, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Jeremiah says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” If we don’t even fully understand ourselves, how are we going to know if what we want is best?

Jesus our Savior gives us the greatest proof that “your will be done” is our best prayer. If God had left me to my own will, I would be trying to pay off my sins by myself. My relationship with God would not be based upon his forgiveness but my own hard work. If I could work my little merit system honestly, I would live in constant doubt and despair of ever doing enough. More likely, I would “fix the game” in favor of my strengths and overlook my weaknesses. I would live in the delusion that I was really making it, only to lose the game for all eternity in the end.

God’s will called for his Son to become one of us and die in our place. We would never have dreamed of asking him for that. God’s will works, because the blood of Jesus Christ his Son purifies us from all sin. His will is best, because it always ends with our hope and our future in heaven.

Perhaps you have noticed this slogan used by the Salvation Army: “Doing the most good.” It’s an interesting sentiment, but it is hard to prove. If we really want the most good, a better place to look is the prayer Jesus taught us to pray: “Your will be done.” It may be hard to pray, but God promises us only what is good, if not always easy. That is better than getting what I want.