Me Vs GOD

As disciples of Jesus, learning how to follow in His steps, one of the most difficult things to live out in our daily experience are the words “Your will be done”. Yes, we sing it, say it in our prayers, even writ it - but living it out? That’s where or resolve Is tested, often rattled and at times, to put it gently, even crumbles.

We see this kind of a life modelled in our saviour. Who in his life chose to say and do only what he felt the Father wanted him to. ANd even in his death, when the weight of the price he was about to pay began to bear on him and the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual pain he was going to endure was imminent, he prayed those well-known words:

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.

(Luke 22:42)

That is absolute surrender. Deferring one’s plans, purposes, desires, preferences, will to the Father in the face of suffering, pain, uncertainty and even death. Absolute obedience requires absolute surrender. TThis prayer was a precursor to everything Jesus was able to do in obeying the Father and going to cross to die in our place so that we can live for Him.

This kind of surrender flies in the face of the our culture with its cynicism towards all authority figures, our me-first culture that borders on narcissism, and the unending pursuit of the highs that come from fulfilling every desire - be it the power of position, the lust for more and everything that money can buy and even the pleasures of the sex-crazed environment we live in.

“You do you, forget about everyone else.” “If it feels good, do it, especially f it doesn’t hurt anybody” We are constantly wanting to define right and wrong for ourselves and change the results. But the reality is, that is a game that has been played right from teh beginning by humans and the result is always the same - alienation - from oneself, those closest to us and most importantly God himself.

The truth is, we are called as followers of Jesus to align our lives to His will be not try to align his will to our’s. That’s tough. I feel like I know that more than anyone, because I feel the tension daily between wanting to do things my way versus doing things God’s way.

The only adequate response to what God has done for us in Christ, is to go beyond gratitude. But gratitude that expresses itself in obedience to Christ. Otherwise, we are just offering lip service to God and walking away from everything he died to give us. When we think of the mercy and grace of God, gratitude quite naturally wells up within us. When we think of how he took us in when we were strangers and even enemies. When he chose to love us beyond our sin, our filth, our mess and dysfunction and pour out his presence on us. When he chose include us in His family where we now can say we are his children, forgiven, free, made righteous and we belong to Him not because of what he has done, but because of His great love for us. When we take that in, Paul reminds us that the most adequate response is to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to Him (Romans 12:2) - Set apart for his purposes. “This” he says, “is your spiritual worship”. Imagine that spirituality is not devoid of physical expressions of surrender but it is a pet of it. Offering our bodies, choosing to live for God - is a spiritual act of worship.

This kind of worship begins with these words, “Yet not my will, but your will be done”. When I’m with my family and I’m tempted to withdraw, or live for myself, or lash out - I want to say “Yet not my will, but your’s..” When I’m at my workplace and I’m tempted but to slack off, backbite, slander, compromise - I want to say, “Yet not my will, but yours..” When I’m by myself and I’m along with my thoughts and I’m tempted to think of people in ways that are evil - I want to say those words. When I’m tempted to take revenge, hold grudges, manipulate, cheat or steal - those are the words I want to say.

What am I really saying when I say those words? This is what I’m trying to tell God when I say, “Yet not my will, but your’s be done.”

• You are wiser and stronger than me. Your vision is greater than mine.

• You are Lord and God, I am not.

• I defer what I feel like choosing, what I prefer right now, to what you want for me.

• I see the here and now, but you see the eternal.

• My life is not my own. But it is yours. It’s all yours.

• I trust you enough to know that even if my life is on the line, I will always be in our hands.

This week, how can we truly obey God? How do we truly surrender? How do we move from a Me-centered to a God-Centered way of living? Let’s find ourselves on our knees as Jesus did in the Garden and let’s echo the words he prayed there.