Thy will be done.......

Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.......thy will be done......on earth, as it is in heaven.

Thus begins the Lord's Prayer, a prayer most of us learned at an early age and so it sticks with us even now as we enter our old age.  Like many things we have memorized it is easy for the words to roll off our tongues without really touching our hearts.

So I asked my congregational leadership to pray through the prayer with me slowly, and to note what tripped them up, made them think, or made them uncomfortable.  I have found that when I am engaging a familiar text it is good to pay attention to these things: the sticking points are places for new insight.

For several, the stumbling block was 'thy will be done.'

It is a powerful and frightening thing to submit oneself to the will of God.  Theoretically that is what we have all done when we took on the waters of baptism however it is in the difficult corners of this life that our willingness to bend to God's will is tested.

Luther takes a slightly different approach to this petition, although not inconsistent for his approach to most theology.  Luther is clear that the first sin is the failure of humans to worship God and hallow God's name.  Instead we want to be God.  That is the  simple explanation for Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (If we know good from evil, we will be like God) and many theologians describe this as the original (and continually persistent) sin.  Luther sees this petition as a request that God continue to break every scheme of the devil that would keep us from hallowing God as God while strengthening us in his Word and faith.

Few of us would put it that way, but in the end, I think we are talking about the same thing.  To honor God as God, the Great Creator, the Redeemer of All, the Power of Life: one God......we must allow God's will to have reign.  Not only that (since some will do this in a fatalistic manner) but we are to trust that whatever happens, God can and will work it to good and bring life.  We are to trust that whatever we confront, God is with us in love and mercy.

When we pray 'thy will be done' we are allowing our will to fall away to be replaced by the Will of God.  In a culture where individual choice reigns supreme, this is no easy task.  We are asking God for the strength to not only accept God's will, but to trust that it comes to us in love and for life.

I can see why that trips us up.  Daily I would assume.