“Your will be done.”

It’s a famous line from Jesus’ prayer. Christians all over the world pray it. Some with passionate zeal, longing for God’s justice and mercy in their lives. Others pray it with trepidation, fearing that God will force them into decisions and situations they dread.

But what if there’s a greater dimension to the phrase, “Your will be done”? Here’s a startling thought from Dallas Willard:

“It is God’s intention that we should grow into the kind of person he could empower to do what we want to do. Then we are ready to ‘reign for ever and ever’ (Rev. 22:5).”
The Divine Conspiracy

What kind of person would we have to become for God to grant us that kind of power and freedom? A person whose will has been formed to match and embody God’s will. This is someone who has trained with Jesus so their will’s natural inclination is to always choose and do what God would chose and do.

Or to paraphrase Willard, God wants us to become people to whom he could give his power and then release into his universe with the same words we’ve prayed to him, “Now, your will be done.”

Such a thought is almost unfathomable. I barely understand God’s will throughout most of my life. And from what little I do understand, my will is nowhere near God’s will.

God’s will is funded by his divine love. So his will is directed toward the thriving and flourishing of every aspect of creation. Everything he wants accomplished is for the good of what he has made. And while every aspect and component of creation, from the smallest quark to the largest galaxy cluster, is easily within his knowledge and control, he also knows when not to let his will be accomplished for a time. But everything he decides and does is motivated by an immense love that is capable and competent to unleash his boundless goodness for everyone and everything so they thrive.

My will, on the other hand, is driven by my self-centeredness and directed toward my comfort, security, and reputation. Sure there might be times of true love and altruism toward other people. But what naturally comes out of my will is more about me. 

Bottom-line, God’s will is all about everything and everyone else thriving and my will is about me being in control.

And that’s why Jesus’ offer of apprenticeship is the good news of God’s kingdom. God’s kingdom — his active will and reign in the here-and-now of our lives — is available in and through Jesus. He is a genuine human being that has learned to fully embody God’s will in the nitty-gritty reality of daily human life.

“Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered.”
Hebrews 5:8

“Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
John 5:19

“For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”
John 12:49-50

He invites us to learn the same thing from him. And if we are able to give up our own way and die to our twisted, self-centered will, then he is able to train us to become like him.

We see a teaser of Jesus’ training program. At one point, he empowers, instructs, and releases his twelve apprentices. At this point in their training, they were able to sufficiently understand and execute the Father’s will for the project at hand.

“When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: ‘Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.’ So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.”
Luke 9:1-6

And later in Luke 10:1-12, Jesus does virtually the exact same thing to 72 of his apprentices. All of this is to say, Jesus is capable of training people to become like him — a person whose will is being formed into God’s will so God can empower and release to competently do what they want because what they want is what he wants.

So how can we learn from Jesus to reform our myopic self-centered will into an others-centered will like God’s, one that is fully committed and capable to help those around us to thrive and flourish?

Frankly, this is the primary goal of Jesus’ apprenticeship project. And this project is lifelong and individualized for each apprentice. But I think there are several key components we are learning over the decades of our life.

1. Learn to trust Jesus to train you: He is fully capable to teach you regardless of your age, gender, personality, family of origin, ethnicity, education, career, wealth, and any other distinguishing factor of your life. He is brilliant and the true master of life. So you can let go of your own way to learn his lifestyle and the practices that formed him.

2. Learn from Jesus how to always keep God before your mind: This is the first and most basic practice of an apprentice. Jesus said in John 17:3 that the life from the age to come (eternal life) is an interactive, experiential knowledge of God and King Jesus. Therefore, we need to learn from Jesus how to stay in constant communication and interaction with the Trinitarian God.

3. Learn from Jesus true joy, contentment and confidence in God: Jesus is able to train you to find genuine, whole-life fulfillment and satisfaction in an interactive life with God, regardless of your life circumstances. Your faith in Jesus will develop into the faith of Jesus, confidently aware that you are always well-off and cared for by your loving Father in his good world. You are trained through experience that you lack nothing good and therefore, never need to feel any compulsion to pursue something you believe to be lacking. Your comfort, security and reputation are in God’s capable hands. You are content in God and truly believe he is doing well by you.

4. Learn from Jesus to release any and all desire to maintain control over people and circumstances: Because you lack nothing good and God is fully committed to your thriving and flourishing, you no longer need to steer people and circumstances toward what you want. Instead, your only concern is their thriving and flourishing. You act in love and goodness toward them and peacefully let God control all outcomes.

5. Learn from Jesus how to pursue love: Remember that we are not learning to act loving, as good as that might be. Acting loving is only acting. We want to learn from Jesus to be possessed by God’s love, the very thing that moves his will to the competent thriving and flourishing of his creation. We want to become like Jesus, a human being so permeated with God’s love that he always placed others above himself for their good. 

I’m sure there are many other important components to learn from Jesus as we train and journey towards becoming people formed into God’s will. But those are five key components that Jesus has been teaching me for several years.

Remember, we are ceaseless beings with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe. That eternal destiny is to become people who will co-reign with God, people embodying God’s thriving and flourishing will toward his creation. Then he can empower us to do what we want to do and can say to us “Your will be done.”